Phantom Wall Devils: A Interview With Sephiroth
by Phoenix Down1
Summary: This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. T. S. Eliot
1. Part Alpha

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Sefirot/Sefirot.html  
  
from the author of "An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Stories: A tale of Sephiroth  
  
"'Ere this evil road,'   
I answered, rising, "leave the deep abyss,   
I pray thee tell me, lest my thought should err,   
Why upward rise the legs of Lucifer," (Dante's Inferno, Canto I. Translated from Italian by S. Fowler Wright)  
  
  
Part: Alpha  
Yesod  
  
Angels do not die.   
  
They, divine or evil, were never mortal to begin with.  
  
Death is only a mortal's condition.  
  
Angels can be sentenced to hell.  
  
Or worse.  
  
But, ultimately, they cannot be destroyed.  
The Sephiroth   
Came to visit me at first in a dream.  
I was asleep downstairs in the apartment complex's basement.   
I had first heard of the Jenova project a few years after the meteor threat.   
The media was ran by the Shin-Ra Company, so the papers were not entirely clear about what exactly happened between the ex-general Sephiroth, and the meteor that threatened the world. I read that Sephiroth, somehow, summoned the meteor from reasons of insanity and wanted to destroy the Earth.  
It sounded crazy to me too. Didn't make any sense. But that was what Shin-Ra said.  
I really didn't care, either. It was all over. And, anyway, that was five years ago. The Earth healed itself, and my friends, family, and I were alive, and I'm still working as a journalist for Kalm's paper, "The Daily Sojourn."   
I didn't make very much.  
I was starting to re-think my career choices.  
Then, it started to happen. Just like I said, the first time it happened I was moving some boxes in the apartment complex's basement, and I suddenly started to feel weak, and I sat down on a musty old red sofa.  
It was raining outside.  
Little feet tapped upon the basement windows in the form of tiny, night, winter raindrops.  
I must have fallen asleep.  
  
In my dream, there was a dark hallway.  
I squinted to see into the darkness.  
But the darkness kept on shifting.  
I reached out into that dark hallway.  
But I touched nothing but slippery shadows.  
I heard the silence; and it was loud.  
  
  
  
...  
  
  
  
"Hello?" I yelled.  
  
And the darkness said hello to me.  
  
It said it was waiting for me.  
  
  
For five years.  
  
  
I asked the darkness what it wanted, what it was doing there in my dreams.  
  
  
It said that it wanted to talk to me.  
  
  
  
  
I told it, I told it, I says,  
  
That I did not want to talk to it.  
  
  
Because I was afraid.  
  
  
  
...  
  
  
Then, it said,  
  
"Be not afraid."  
  
It told me that it was an angel.  
  
An angel, there, waiting, in that dark hallway.  
  
"Come to me, for I am the way, the truth, and the darkness."  
  
I hesitated.  
  
Then, I know not why, I walked into that hallway,  
  
Where the shadows kept on shifting.  
  
And where the silence was loud.  
  
And then I woke up.  
...  
  
I woke up right where I fell asleep.  
Except, there was a man sitting in a chair across from me.  
Only, it was not a man.  
It was Sephiroth.  
Spider legged shadows danced across his pale, smooth, inhuman face.  
Silky silver lengths of fine hair sat upon his shoulders.  
His eyes were long and the color of supple green stars.  
Delicately, so elegantly, his fingers rested under his lips as if in pensive thought.  
  
  
"I find it amusing."  
The angel first said as he turned away from me. I had just turned on the tape recorder.   
I am not sure where the tape recorder came from.  
But it was the first thing that occurred for me to do. It was the only thing that made sense.  
As if it were a command from a dream.  
  
I asked him, nervously, to tell me what was so amusing.  
His narrow eyes snapped back at me.  
I felt a small pain in my stomach.  
He was going to conduct this interview in his own way. He stood slowly.  
His shiny black coat fell to the floor.  
The folds in it were glossy and beautiful.   
Then, he pulled out his long sword, knocked over a chair, and sliced it in half without a qualm,  
As if killing the furniture, or destroying anything, was natural.  
I was afraid.  
And he smiled.  
  
"Don't ask why I choose you to be my particular interviewer. Is... that recorder on? Don't ask WHY I wanted to be interviewed. Just do as I say and we will not have a problem..."  
He kicked the chair back up to its ride side, and sat down quickly. He crossed his legs.   
The chair's stuffing was crawling out.  
"Go on. Ask me a question. That is what you do as a profession, isn't it?"  
I told him that I wasn't sure where he should begin, besides the beginning.  
He hesitated.  
  
His fingers found a resting place under his lips once more.  
  
I felt uneasy.  
The long, thin smile played upon the corner of his lips.   
But he simply sat there and stared at me.  
"Very... well." He said, finally, shattering the cold pause.  
He cocked his head to the side, and rested his chin upon his knuckles.  
"Are you afraid of me?"  
I told him I was.  
"THAT is what is so amusing."  
  
He suddenly threw his head back, and wickedly laughed.  
His long hair dangled and danced.  
His chest seemed to convulse.  
His laugh was loud, and sharp.  
Like the shadows that kept on shifting.  
Much like his eyes.  
He excused himself, and wiped the bottom of his eyes of tears that were not there.  
I didn't ask him what was so funny.  
Then, he simply began to talk.  
"It started out in the lab. However, you see I was not the only one. My earliest memories were with professor Hojo. Have you met him? He is... brilliant. I will credit him that. Like I said... I wasn't the only one injected with Jenova cells. No. My clones. Hmm. From the expression on your face, I can tell that you don't really understand. I will explain better."  
~  
"How is she doing?" Gast eagerly asked Ifalna.   
"I don't know. The doctors won't let me IN!"  
Gast paced back and forth. His nails were bitten and bloody.  
"I don't like it. He shouldn't have done this. Experimenting on human-"  
"Pro- I mean, Gast, look!" Ifalna tapped his shoulder. Gast spun around.  
A blonde haired doctor came out of the room. In his arms was a very large baby, wailing, writhing, and crying.  
"AW! He's so CUTE! Let me hold him!" Ifalna beamed as the doctor rested the child in her cradled arms.   
"How's Lucrecia?" Gast asked the doctor, who was lined with worry and stress.  
"Uh...well. You see, the child is unusually large. That is, he is the size, weight, and uhm, well; his developmental stage is very uh, unusual for a newborn. Probably due to the Jenova cells. He is at the mental and size capacity of a four month old. He can crawl. Uh, this experience was very... VERY physically traumatic for the mother."  
"Is she OK?!" Gast barked, not accepting that off key answer from the doctor.  
The doctor glanced at him. He flipped over some papers on a clipboard, took out a pen and began to walk away.  
"She will pull through." He answered stonily.   
Gast pressed his face against the glass on the door, trying to get a glimpse of Lucrecia.  
Ifalna held the baby and soothingly cooed.  
"I wonder if you would like to play with little my little Aeris? Hey... hey, baby... shh... don't cry. Yeah. Your mommy will be ok, little one. Can you see if she is ok?" Ifalna asked.  
"No, I can't see anything. But I think that she's on a drip, or something."  
Ifalna didn't respond. The baby grabbed her finger, tightly.  
"This little guy is STRONG!"  
"Yeah." Gast said as he turned to her. He smiled limply.  
"He's a big guy. Bet he's... going to grow fast, and be a man. Due to the Jenova cells, of course. You know? This is all HOJO's fault that my assistant is sick." Gast thumped his fist against the hospital's white stonewalls.  
"Honey, calm down. She will be ok. We should get this little one to the nursery, though."  
Gast nodded, and the three of them left for the nursery...  
~  
"You seem a little bored." The angel said to me as I looked at the tape recorder. I told him that I wasn't bored at all. Quite opposite, that I was fascinated by the tale of his birth.   
He paused another long pause, this time as if suddenly falling into an ocean of deep thoughts.  
I did not disrupt him.  
His eyes slowly rose to meet mine.  
I felt my body quake under the graveyard glare.  
He told me, in a deep reverberating voice, that this was all he was going to talk about this evening.  
I woke up again.  
Except, I KNOW that I was never asleep.  
It was as if I suddenly became conscience.   
The night winter raindrops went...  
Tap.  
Tap.  
Tap.  
I was alone.  
Except for a hallway that was now there.  
One that was not there in the apartment basement before I came down.  
It sat across from me, where the red chair used to be, the same chair that had the stuffing crawling out.  
  
I slowly stood up, and rubbed my eyes. I felt cold.  
The hallway also felt cold.  
  
I looked around. I thought, I thought that maybe if I moved the boxes in front of the hallway that was there, and was not there before, that I would be less afraid.  
  
There was something terribly, utterly, horribly, frightening about that hallway.  
Except, it was nothing more than a dark passageway, and nothing else.  
Maybe it was there before I fell asleep, and simply did not notice it.  
Then, why does it seem to engulf the whole room?...  
  
....  
  
With it's wide-open unknown...  
  
Tap.  
Tap.  
Tap.  
  
The rain fell.  
  
And the darkness of the hallway kept on shifting. 


	2. Part Beta

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Stories: A tale of Sephiroth   
  
Part Beta  
Shekhinah  
  
"Far or forgot to me is near;  
Shadow and sunlight are the same;  
the vanished gods to me appear;  
And one to me are shame and fame.   
They reckon ill who leave me out;  
when me they fly, I am the wings;  
I am the doubter and the doubt,  
and I the hymn the Brahmin sings." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Brahma)  
  
  
  
I came home drunker than a sailor and higher than a kite.  
I was telling Misty about the hallway that appeared in the basement, and how the dead general Sephiroth came and visited me last night.  
She laughed, and laughed, and laughed. I laughed, too.  
It really was a good story, though.  
I told her I had everything on tape recorder.  
She said that I was beginning to freak her out and that I should stop talking about the whole thing.   
But I couldn't help it, I was so drunk and so stoned that I kept pushing the subject further.  
At night, the village of Kalm is beautiful, especially to the hazy, messed up mind. Teenagers hung out in knots on street corners, laughing, fighting, and flirting under the midnight sun. Soft yellow streetlights and the eyes on houses emitted inviting conversations. Kalm is a fine and safe city. Nothing evil could ever come to Kalm.  
Even the name is peaceful.  
  
My cousin, Misty and I were on our way walking home. The bars were closing. But, we knew that we were safe. The crime rate is so low, people feel fine walking the streets and even dark alleyways in the youngest hours of the morning.  
"Fine! If this is such a big fucking deal to you, I'll uh..." She started to loose herself in a spin and started laughing.  
We were both so fucked up, the taped conversation of a dead general who tried to destroy the world five years ago sounded hysterical.  
"I'll. Fuckit. I'll come to your place and we will listen to that freaky tape of yours. Ok?"  
I told her fine, she will see. Then I started laughing.  
We walked, or rather, stumbled, to my apartment complex. I unlocked the basement door.  
Immediately, I began to sober up. But, she didn't. She just expected to hear some old tape I found of an old man I interviewed for an article for the newspaper or something.   
Then, I realized that I couldn't find the light switch.  
"Ohmygawd... Where is it? Where is the eff-in' light switch? OW! I think that something just like, scratched, or bit my leg, or somethin'!" Misty giggled.  
  
I couldn't find the light switch, either. I knew exactly where it was supposed to be. It was a rope, which hung from a light bulb, and it was right near the stairway. Boxes crowded underneath the wooden stairs and up the gray stonewall. There were long panels of small dirty windows near a couple of old red sofas. That was where Sephiroth and I talked. Right across from there sat the hallway that was supposed to have appeared last night.  
"Jesus fuckin' Christ, I'm spendin' my Saturday night crawlin' around some basement complex with my stupid ass cousin!" Misty slightly sobered up and started laughing as she stumbled over a few boxes of torn linens.   
"Jesus, I'm goin' home! Christ. This is dumb."   
I yelled to her, saying that she shouldn't leave, that I wasn't lying.   
But she didn't care, she was laughing as she left.  
"Your bein' so stupid and so creepy. I'm outta here. I got better shit to do than to hang around my stupid cousin."   
As she stumbled up the stairs, she absent-mindedly slammed the door behind her.  
It locked.  
  
  
...  
  
  
...  
  
  
...  
  
I sat there, panicky and frozen...  
Thump.  
Thump.  
Thump.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Help.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I sat down, and wrapped my arms around my knees.  
It didn't help that I got fucked up earlier that night. My mind was spinning in-between alcohol, weed, and fear. Maybe the hallway and the talk with the dead general was a figment of my imagination.  
Shadows, spitted and forming dancing within my screams.  
I wish these sick, perverted diseases were just in my dreams.  
I thought I was going to vomit.  
I thought that I was going to vomit and die.  
I felt the hallways presence.  
It was there. The hallway was there, near the boxes, on the wall,  
Across the room.  
It was looming over me.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Really now. You're shaking and sweating. It's cold down here and you are sweating like a horse. And where is your tape recorder?"   
  
  
I looked up, and there stood the angel.  
  
  
He came out of the hallway, and stood above me.  
  
His feet never quite touched the ground.   
  
  
I slowly unlocked my arms, and stood.   
My face was glazed in cold sweat. My heart thudded.  
  
Thump.  
Thump.  
Thump.  
  
He looked around, and slowly slid off his long black coat. Carelessly, he tossed it upon the red sofa.  
Then, he sat.  
I asked him of he wanted me to turn on the tape recorder as I stumbled, looking around for it.  
He said, no.  
Not knowing what to do with myself then, I stood back, and wondered why he apportioned to the dilapidated, sweaty, apartment basement. A fallen, wicked angel he is. And to the basement of a poor journalist he continues to haunt.  
His eyes follow me.  
But they are not eyes.  
They are far from human.  
But, still, the follow me.  
Then, I found the recorder.  
I began to belive that none of this was real.  
Then, I realized that I had not turned on the light, because I did not find the light switch.  
But the light was on. The basement was perfectly lit.  
  
"Let me tell you something. Sit down. No, don't bother with the tape. Sit."  
I did as I was told.  
I think that I was in shock; the real kind of shock, the physical shock.   
Like when your body is in a traumatic state.  
His lips parted into a sliver of black. He was still inhumanly, tragically beautiful, like the angel, Lucifer.  
  
"Do you like music?" He asked smoothly. He ran his fingers through the ends of his hair.  
I stuttered. I told him that I did.  
"What's the matter?" He paused. "Oh, yes, I see. Wait. No. You're not afraid. You're just surprised in seeing me again. Isn't that it? Oh. You thought I was dead. Hm. Hmm... hmmmm!"  
He chuckled, and shook his head.  
"Stop being such a fool and calm down. Yes, the fact is that I am here..." He   
stood up, and paced around the room. Back and forth, back and forth.  
  
Thump.  
  
Thump.  
  
Thump.  
  
"Idiots. You... you... no, not you. MOST of you are all... IDIOTS. To think... TO THINK that I could be destroyed so easily. No. No. No. Let me re-phrase that." He stopped, paused, and lowered his head.  
I thought that he might begin laughing again.  
But he did not.  
"Do you... hear music?"  
I shook my head.  
"Music. Music lifts... the SOUL...*O Fortuna, velut luna, statu veribilis, semper crescis, aut decrescis; vita detestabilis, nunc obdurat, et tunc curat ludo mentis anciem, egestatem, porestatem, dissolvit ut glaciem. Sors immanis et inanis rota tu volubilis-"  
  
The angel, Sephiroth, began to sing.  
His voice was a perfect tenor's.  
But he suddenly stopped in mid sentence and began to laugh.  
His laugh was as loud as his song.  
It then occurred to me that I did not have the recorder turned on.  
"Now... WHERE was I before I sidetracked myself? WHERE is your RECORDER?"  
  
I took the recorder, and heard the button snap down as I pressed it.  
As he spoke, he paced back and forth with his sword in hand.   
"Oh, oh yes. Gast. My birth."  
  
~  
  
"My... Baby... I want to hold my baby... Where is my baby?" Lucrecia asked as she tossed her head two and fro on the wet pillow.  
"Shh... Lucrecia. It will be all right. Do you know what happened to you while you were giving birth?"  
"My baby. I want to... to hold my baby..."  
"The baby was too large. They had to do an emergency c-section." Vincent explained as he knelt by her side.  
But she did not hear him.  
Then, she tossed her head once more, and fell asleep.  
Vincent Valentine stood. His knees ached. His head ached. His heart ached.  
"How is she?" Hojo asked as he stormed in with a flurry of paperwork held together with a clipboard.  
"What do you care?" Vincent snapped harshly.  
Hojo chortled, and did not reply.  
"Out like a light? Whatever. The baby is doing MARVOLUS, much better than I would've anticipated. However, the aging and growing process is a side effect I find absolutely astounding. I never foresaw it. The baby was born only yesterday and can already walk. He looks, acts, and thinks like a healthy one or two year old. Why, by the end of next week I'd say he will already be speaking in full sentences and reading, proving with the proper instruction and influence of course."  
Vincent wasn't listening to a word he said, but Hojo carried on.  
"In fact, since he is doing so well, we have already commenciated with the Mako injections and the Jenova cloning..."  
Vincent's ears pricked up.  
"Cloning? Mako injections?!"  
"Why, Vincent, didn't you know that this baby was nothing but a gigantic science experiment?"  
"I thought we SPOKE about that?"  
"Yes, we did, and I choose to ignore your little outburst for the time being. Besides, it's not your body. It is Lucrecia's. And she agreed to loan her body for the greater good of-"  
Vincent grabbed the white collar of Hojo's jacket and violently throttled him.  
Hojo's glasses slid off of his long beak-like nose, and clattered to the cold floor.  
"UNHAND me you BEAST!"  
"GIVE LUCRECIA BACK TO ME, GIVE HER BACK!" Tears sputtered out from the corner of Vincent's eyes.  
Professor Gast ran in, and tried to pull him off Hojo.  
"Vincent! VINCENT! Let him go! Let him GO!"  
Professor Gast, who was a little bigger then both of them, pulled Vincent off Hojo. He tore a few seams in Vincent's navy blue jacket.  
Hojo cleared his throat, picked up his glasses, and straitened his lab coat.  
"Beast. Horrible beast you are. Your temper. Now, if you will excuse me."  
Hojo passed a icy glance to Vincent as he left.  
Vincent was catching his breath and stood seething with rage.  
Gast stroked his light brown beard, not knowing what to say to Vincent.  
"YOU shouldn't have let him do it! You shouldn't have encouraged him! YOU SHOULDN'T have helped him!"  
"I did what I thought was best. Maybe I was wrong." Gast stuttered and stepped back, hoping Vincent's anger wouldn't find a new direction.  
"I thought that we needed clones. We need anwers, Vincent, and since Jenova itself can't speak to us directly, we need to re-create her. That is why we created Sephiroth."  
"SEPHIROTH?! You named the baby, SEPHIROTH?! What about a proper name?! HE IS a PERSON, professor! You... you can't go on treating the child as if it were inhuman... SEPHIROTH!? Naming him after your... Hojo's godforsaken obsession with the Tree of Life... and that... that religion! Sephiroth!? What were you THINKING?! Does Lucrecia even know?"  
"Yes. She knows. She said it was, 'fitting.'" Gast sighed, and glanced over his shoulder to the girl sound asleep from exhaustion in the bed.  
"I... doubt she will pull out of this, Vincent, you were right. You were right. We sacrificed too much for this expiriment."  
  
Vincent nodded, began to sob, and together they walked out of the room.  
  
~  
  
I was calming down. The more he talked, the more at ease I began to feel. The tape stopped right there with a snap.  
As it did, Sephiroth immediately stopped, too.  
"The tape ended?"  
I nodded.  
"Then I will end for tonight, too."  
I nodded again.  
"I will see you tomarrow..." He smirked with sharp teeth.  
Then he left, through the hallway that, in my right mind, know that shouldn't exist.  
But it does.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
*("O Fortune, like the moon, you are changeable, ever waxing and waning. Hateful, life first oppresses, and then sooths as fancy takes it; poverty and power melts them like ice. Fate: monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent-" [Carmina Burana: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi 25. composed by Stravinsky "O Fortuna" (O Fortune)] Translation by Phoenix Down) 


	3. Part Gamma

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Gamma  
Binah  
  
"o come,terrible anonymity;enfold  
phantom me with the murdering minus of cold  
-open this ghost with millionary knives of wind-  
scatter his nothing all over what angry skies and  
gently..." (E.E. Cummings, 'Enter no')  
  
  
  
I stayed up all that night. I didn't leave the apartment complex's basement. I didn't go upstairs to shit, (although I needed to, badly. I could've shit my pants.)  
I stared at that hallway all night. The thought of simply going upstairs, back to my rented home, back to where it was safe and warm and where I left my TV on, just didn't occur to me. I just stared at that blank hallway.  
I had the tape in my hand, too. The one that I recorded with Sephiroth talking. It was filled up on both sides. I labeled it, "The Sephiroth Record: Volume one"  
I knew that he was coming back, and deep down inside, I knew it was all real.  
  
At about five o'clock in the morning, the sun started to birth once again.   
There are few things in life that you can count on.  
I used to think that walls were one of them.  
But I just figured that out- that, that wasn't true.  
Sometimes hallways appear in walls without reason or rhyme.  
But the sun.  
You can count on the sun.  
  
I didn't want to go into the office today. I was still feeling the after affects from being fucked up last night. Slightly hangover, that is.  
I didn't shave, I didn't bathe. I sure as hell didn't feel like going in and writing some stupid article for Kalm's daily paper.  
I will just come in tomorrow and tell them that I'm working on some big story about Sephiroth.  
That is almost true: little do they know that I have a real interview with him.  
  
I looked around the basement. People's shit was everywhere. People, I figured out, keep a lot of shit. A lot of baggage. There were boxes of my neighbors old 'Slate' magazines down there. Unused luggage. Linens, baby toys, my own personal record collection (which was what I was moving before.) Shit. Pure shit. I tried avoiding looking at that hallway. But it kept staring at me under the silence of the morning sun sliding through the windows.  
I think it was growing.  
I think it was breathing.  
I think it was watching me.  
  
I think I need to get out of here before it eats me.  
So, I did just that. I finally plucked up enough courage, walked up the tiered wooden stairs, and forced open the basement door.  
I glanced over my shoulder and looked one more time into that hallway.  
It was growing. It took up part of the ceiling that it didn't have before.  
Inside it's cold darkness, the shadows were swirling and shifting.  
  
I felt an old hole in my heart as I walked out with Sephiroth's tape in my pocket.  
  
I went home. I didn't want to think about anything right then. It occurred to me to ask the apartment manager who lived on the floor above me, to ask him for the floor plans of the building. It may explain the anomaly downstairs.  
Fuckit.  
The phone rang.  
"Goin' into work today?"  
I told him no. I wasn't feeling well. But I am working on a project.  
Jamie didn't push it. We talked a little bit, a fellow co-journalist, but he didn't push me into coming in. He would explain things to the editor.  
  
I normally keep my apartment relatively clean. But, hey, it's a young bachelor's, strait-out-of-college apartment. There were just a couple, not too old, mind you, empty pizza boxes, and beer cans. The TV was rarely turned off. Not that I watch it too much, but it's background noise.  
No girlfriend.  
Just a handful of close buddies.  
And my writing.   
That's all I got.  
I guess you could say that there is a gigantic, hallway-sized hole in my life.  
  
Five years ago, all our lives could have ended. But it didn't. It just keeps going, in a narrow corridor, with maybe a light at the end of a tunnel. All our lives have one direction, and that is our future. Then, you hit the wall, and you can't see where you are going because no one can tell the future.   
What if something horrible, terrible, and ugly shoots out into our lives?  
Comes out of nowhere, fucks you hard up and down, spits you out until you are cold, alone, and new and crying into the world.  
Fuckit.  
I'm not going back down there ever again.  
  
I turned off the TV and went up to the manager's apartment upstairs.   
I knocked on his door.  
I waited alone in that slate gray corridor.  
The carpeting in our apartment complex is battered with cigarette stains and mud. However, even with the splashes, dashes, and stains of color everything looks so bland and lonely.  
  
A sour smelling, salty, sweaty man in a stained, striped, bathrobe answered after I nearly turned around and left.   
"Yeah?" He asked, in a half drunken daze. He had a horseshoe baldhead, shining with grease. He clutched his warm beer can tightly.  
I asked him for the floor plans of the apartment building, especially, if he had, one of the basement.  
"What?" He retorted.   
I asked him again, politely, and patiently.  
"Whadd du you... need that for?" He asked, confused and irritated.  
I told him for inspection purposes, I would show him my badge if he needed me to. I didn't want trouble.  
I completely lied about whom I was.  
"No no, no trouble, here, let me go find your fuckin' floor plans... goddamnit, I was watchin' the game, you know?"  
  
He made me hold his beer can when he went and got it.   
He returned after only a half a moment. It took only a glance to tell me THAT THERE WAS NO HALLWAY IN THE BASEMENT.  
"Oh, uh, do you mind if ah- you do somethin' for me?"  
I said, sure.  
"Go in the basement, and get me another uh- well, get me my old red tool box, would ya? Since I got you your fuckin' floor plans, and everythin'. I need to unclog my drain, and I'm not really, you know- dressed. The misses would appreciate it." The sour smelling manager implored and imposed in half a moment of sobriety. He smiled with yellow, sixty year old teeth.  
I nearly said no. I did not want to go back down there. Reasons of my own.  
But, in a second of flashing stupidity, who knows, maybe it was all the chemicals I fed myself in my younger days coming back to me in a single balled up moment of self-degradation, I agreed.  
I handed him back his floor plans. He took them. I left. To go back down into the basement.  
  
I went down the second floor.  
  
  
I went down to the first floor.  
  
  
I passed my apartment without stopping,  
  
To say hello to the comfortable walls there.  
  
  
And I went DOWN...  
  
  
Down.  
  
  
  
Down.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Down.  
  
  
Into the basement.  
  
  
Fuckit. It's dark down here.  
  
  
And there, near the boxes, near the gray slab walls.  
  
Was the hallway waiting for me.  
  
Thump.  
Thump.  
Thump.  
And I swallowed a hard knot in my throat that only sat and festered in my stomach. In my pocket was the first tape that Sephiroth had made.  
I took a deep breath, and looked down that hallway. It grew.  
It was now huge and took up half the ceiling and some of the floor.  
It was eating everything inside. A few boxes were missing because they were eating by the cold and endless black.  
  
I turned my back, and decided that I was just going to run. I lifted my left leg. I think that it locked. It didn't feel like my leg, I felt like I could not control it.   
I looked up to the wooden stairway that led to the door out of the basement. It seemed a mile away, but I was focused on it, and I was going to RUN.  
  
As soon as my left leg had returned feeling, I was about to launch myself.  
Here I go.  
I'm going to run, now.  
  
A hand was on my shoulder.  
  
The hand was dead and clammy and disgustingly, wretchedly, beautiful.  
  
Like a vomitus, white mass of skin stretched and painted into digits of a inhuman angel.  
  
I didn't run.  
  
On the contrary, I was frozen, fixed in that one spot, between the hallway and the stairs that led to freedom, where everything was warm, safe, and normal.  
  
Sanity.  
  
"Where are you going?" Sephiroth asked.  
  
I lost.  
  
I turned around, and he stood there.  
And I stood there.  
"We have a lot more to do. Sit. Sit down!"  
  
That tape recorder, that I am not sure where it came from, happened to be sitting next to me. There was a fresh tape inside.  
  
"You are ready? Good."  
  
~  
  
Reeve dangled the stuffed white animal in front of the infant.   
"You know what this is?" Reeve cooed to the baby mockingly.  
"Dooo you know what this is... little baby Sephiroth? Yes. It's a toy, but not the kind of toy for you. Oh. No it's not. This is my toy. Yes. Yes it is."  
The child looked blankly up at Reeve with cold green eyes. It was not a child's stare.  
"Hmph." Reeve grunted, dissatisfied and slightly disturbed by the adult look on the child's face.  
"Stupid kid. What do you know? Well, you know what? This toy's is going to make me richer than the president of Shin-Ra someday. It's a remote control, see? See, I can look here at this end with this cat toy, NO! keep your grubby hands off of it, there, and then, I can control it with this toy."  
Reeve Sith, in charge of the company's managing technology department of the Shin-Ra corporation, showed how to control the both the cat toy and the large white stuffed toy with his remote control and TV screen.   
Sephiroth at first seemed to be bored with it.  
Then, the child broke his serious expression with a shattering of laughter and clapping.  
Reeve smiled, proud of himself in making the new born laugh.  
"ENOUGH, Reeve! Get out of here! That child is an experiment, NOT HERE TO AMUSE YOU!"  
"Shut-up, Hojo, I'm showin' the kid a good time!"   
Hojo stormed into the lab in a flurry of paper, a white lab coat, and a foul mood.   
"HE is not just A KID! He is my SCIENCE EXPERIMENT! And you... and you... you may taint him! Get away, shoo shoo! I- unlike you- take my job SERIOUSLY! And I do not want my work RUINED by some pesky TOY MAKER! Get OUT!~"  
"Fine. Fine. I just think that stick up your ass has a stick up it's ass..." Reeve mumbled under his breath as he took his electronic toys and headed for the door.   
"What was THAT?" Hojo snapped bitterly.  
Reeve said nothing as he slammed the door behind himself.  
  
Hojo paused for a moment, then turned to the child, Sephiroth.  
  
"Hm. Perfectly healthy, normal boy. Unusual growth... side effect of mako infusions. Possibly the Jenova cells." He muttered to himself and scribbled something down on his official looking papers.  
"Now, what of it, boy? Can you remember what I taught you?"  
Sephiroth giggled, and spat up.  
"Now, what is THIS, boy?" Hojo flipped through his papers, and held up his clip board. On the paper was a large picture of a cat.  
"Aaat." Sephiroth yelled, clapped his hands, and tried grabbing the clipboard.  
"Good! And this?"  
Hojo flipped the page, and held up another picture- it was that of a tree.  
"Beeee!"  
"No." Hojo snapped. He hated children.  
"Keeey!"  
"No. Dam- It's a TREE!"  
"Three!" Sephiroth held up three chubby fingers.  
"Close enough."  
  
Weeks passed. Lucrecia passed. Sephiroth was still exhibiting unusual growth and developmental rates. Sephiroth was six months old, and looked, acted, and for all tense and purposes was at the normal five year old level. He threw fits when he could not have his way.  
He was socialized and interacted with other five year olds.  
But he was not five. He was six months old.  
  
  
"For all I can tell, doc, he's five. Shit, I got a six year old sister at home myself-" Tseng asked.  
"He's not five!" Gast sputtered.  
Hojo was silent, and gave a long thin grin.  
"It's not natural..." Gast sighed. "But he is what he is. We can treat him at his level. He is human. I'm just worried about the death rate- what will he be like in five YEARS? Will he even be alive then? If the growth rate won't slow down-"  
"The mako injections help that. I tested it myself with normal human DNA. The SOLDIERS. It slows their aging process, and helps keeps the healthy cells young. It's quite astounding, really." Hojo uttered.  
"And what of Jenova? Did he speak of Jenova, yet? Has he any of its memories? Was the project a complete failure?"  
"No. For all we know the project and the test was a failure. Memory is something that conclusively cannot be passed down via genes. Sephiroth is an example of that so far. I suppose Jenova will always be a mystery to us, since, obviously we can not ask it itself, and Sephiroth obviously inherited no memories from the injected cells. I THOUGHT, honestly, with 95% of my being that this test would be a success, but, obviously, everything was a failure. We shouldn't have done this. We lost Lucrecia-it was all in vain." Gast said sadly to Tseng.  
Hojo was silent, and stared out the small window into the room where Sephiroth was interacting with other children.  
"Perhaps not a complete failure. There still are the clones." He said.  
"I will have nothing to do with those, Hojo." Gast barked.  
"What about Jenova? What happened to it?" Tseng asked.  
"We moved it. We can't get rid of it, and we have technically done all we can with it, so we moved it. Top secret lab." Gast answered.  
Tseng coiled his hands behind his back, and sighed.  
Hojo stared at Sephiroth.  
  
Sephiroth was laughing.  
  
"I suppose I shall move onto other studies." Gast said absently.  
"Oh, like what?" Tseng asked.  
"Well, the Centra, through all my research, still fascinate me."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"And, what's this?" Hojo asked.  
"A... uh, broad sword."  
"Good!" Hojo seemed pleased. The boy was catching on quickly.  
"And this?" Hojo asked sweetly.  
"Uh. Fuck. You know? I'm getting sick of this. Can't I get like a different teacher, a CLASSROOM!? I'm not a kid anymore."  
"Don't use that tone of voice with ME! I am your TEACHER I am your FATHER! I raised you!"  
"You haven't raised me, I raised myself, old bat. I'm just saying that I'd rather be taught in a classroom with my peers, you know. I'm fourteen years old, I can take care of myself." Sephiroth snapped.  
  
But he was not fourteen.  
  
He was three years old.  
  
But he didn't know that. In his mind, he was a perfectly ordinary fourteen year old.  
  
Hojo's eye was twitching with irritation. He started to get gray hairs two years ago on the side of his head.  
"DON'T use that kind of language in my presence, boy! You need to know this stuff if you are going to be any member of SOLDIER!!"  
"I don't want to join SOLDIER." Sephiroth turned his head, muttered, and folded his arms.  
"Then what DO you want to DO?!"  
Sephiroth sighed, and looked out the window. He wanted to sing. He loved classical music, but he would admit to nothing.  
"I donno."  
"GEAH! That's IT I'm finished! I'm going to hire you a counselor, a MENTAL counselor! You are impossible! And I'm hiring a TUTOR! MAYBE you need a physiatrist and some PROZAC!" Hojo flew out in frenzy, yelling down the hall about something with hating teenagers.  
  
Sephiroth picked at a reddening pimple, and stared into his reflection on the glass window.   
It was a sunny day.  
He thought it was funny when the old bat got really pissed off. Hojo reminded him of those stereotypical mad scientists with crazy hair, a lab coat, and a triangular vile of something green and bubbly and if you drank it you would turn into a hairy beast.  
Hojo also pissed him off.  
Everyone pissed him off and no one understood him.  
Where was a mother when you needed her?  
Sephiroth dropped his head into his folded arms on the desk.  
He smoothed back his short, black, strait hair.  
Sephiroth wished he had a mom. 


	4. Part Delta

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Delta  
Hesed  
  
"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,   
fearing,   
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;   
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,"   
(Edgar Allen Poe 'The Raven')  
  
  
  
(Sephiroth continues about his adolescence)  
  
Yes. A mother. Sephiroth wished that he had a mother. Every time he brought it up with Hojo, he would be dismissed or ignored.  
Once, Hojo snapped at him.  
"Shut up. Don't ask. Now, are you ready for your injection? Where is that arm?"  
Sephiroth sighed, rolled up his sleeve, and would think about something else.  
It wasn't the pain, or the needles, it was the routine of it all.  
Daily Mako injections.  
Hojo told the young Sephiroth that it was for his own good. His health depended upon it. Hojo told him that he simply aged differently than other boys.  
Sephiroth accepted that, because he lived with it his whole life. It's just the way things were.  
The Mako injections DID- for the most part- greatly slow his aging process (It just took the right dosage to work properly.) It nearly slowed down to that of a normal rate. A year would be a year, not five.  
  
  
  
"Hey, Seph, how's it goin'?"   
Sephiroth had his head on the desk. He sat alone in the lab. He felt lonely, as many a teenage boys often feel.  
"...Fine."  
"Tiered?"   
"...Yeah."  
"Did you hear about professor Gast?"  
"Yeah."  
"Did you know that he had a little girl?"  
"...No."  
"They say that she's a Centra. Well, half-breed. Wonder what happened to Ifalna."  
Sephiroth raised his head.  
"What are you talking about?"  
"Well, you know, Gast and Ifalna were-"  
"Yeah, I know."  
"And Gast was sticking his nose into business that wasn't his. Ifalna had his baby- SHE was a Centra. And-"  
"And-"  
"The baby is gone."  
"Oh. So." Sephiroth lowered his head, and rested it upon his crossed arms.  
"Cheer up."   
"No...I hate this. I hate growin' up in a fuckin' lab like I'm some sort of experiment. You know? I really- REALLY envy you."  
She went silent and stood in the shadows. She knew Sephiroth WAS in fact, an experiment- or so that's what the rumors say.  
"I was doing some reading..." Sephiroth continued quietly.  
"Yeah?"  
"And... Well, I don't know. Funny that you mentioned Centra." He raised his head, and looked at her.  
"There is a lot of stuff in this lab. Old files. Stuff like that. Books. A lot of old stuff. Did- uhm- Hojo ever say anything to you about my mom?"  
"No. Why?"  
"I don't know who she is. I run over things that mention Centra. Maybe my mom was a Centra."  
"Oh. I don't know, Seph. I'm... I'm sorry..."  
"Sorry about--?"  
"Your mom."  
"Oh." Sephiroth looked puzzled. What did SHE have to be sorry over. He didn't know if his mother was dead or not. He didn't even know her name.  
"Gast was studying Centra. That's what the whole thing about Ifalna was about." She added.  
"Yeah, I know." Sephiroth muttered as he slowly stood.  
"How is your SOLDIER training with Hojo goin?"  
"Shitty. He pisses me off. I don't want to join SOLDIER."  
"What do you want to do, then?"  
"Won't laugh if I tell you?" Sephiroth's serious expression slowly cracked into a grin. She shook her head.   
He walked over to another ill lit lab desk, and uncovered an antique looking radio/tape player. He pushed a pile of papers off of it, and dusted off the buttons with his fingers.  
"What's that?"  
He didn't reply, but his grin remained.  
He pushed the silver on button.  
The radio came on.  
"...KQM. 104.8. This is Mathias filling in for Arabell. Hey! Have you ever wanted to get rid of those unwanted nose-hairs? Ew- gross! Then why don't you try new, "exploda-hair!" Works like a charm! Just pop the top and BAM- explode those hairs away! BAM! 'Mandy, have you been using 'exploda-hair?' your nose looks so hairless!' 'Why, yes, thank you for noticing, Cheri! The only side-effects are burnt lips, blisters, weight-gain, bloating, dry mouth, alien abduction, spontaneous human combustion, and in some instances and rare occurrences, death!' 'Oh, really, Mandy?! I should try it then, boy, is my nose hairy!' 'Holy shit, Cheri-"  
Sephiroth changed the channel, he continued flipping through it until a classical opera peered through the static filled wave and ancient speaker grate.  
"Oh, Seph, what are you doing?" She giggled.  
"Sh- Wait. What is this?" Sephiroth closely listened to what was playing. The moment he recognized the piece, he began singing beautifully along.  
"Lunge da lei  
per me non v'ha diletto!  
Volaron già tre lune  
dacchè la mia Violetta  
agi per me lasciò, dovizie, amori;  
e le pompose feste  
ov'agli omaggi avvezza,  
vedea schiavo ciascun  
di sua bellezza..."*  
  
*(Life without her  
holds no delights for me!  
Three months have passed already  
since my Violetta  
gave up riches, love affairs  
and splendid parties for me,  
a life where she was courted  
and where she enslaved everyone  
with her beauty..."**  
  
**Taken from the opera: La Traviata   
Il Trovatore   
DE' MIEI BOLLENTI SPIRITI (... OF MY IMPETUOUS SPIRITS)  
Music: Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). Translation: Phoenix Down.  
  
She nearly fell backwards in her chair giggling. Sephiroth immediately stopped, and looked at her seriously.  
"Am I really that bad?" He asked  
"No.. no no. God, no. Your just so good! I'd have never thought-"  
"What?" He asked, clicking off the radio, and feeling slightly embarrassed.   
He felt the blood rush to his face as he turned bright red.  
He was TRYING to impress her, and she was just laughing.  
"I'd have never thought that YOU were an- uh- OPERA singer!"  
"Well, I like music."  
"Yeah, I know." She said kicking her feet as she sat.  
"I want to start a band." He said absently.  
"An opera band?" She laughed.  
"NO!" He snapped, still being feeling embarrassed and red.  
He dropped his head.  
"Seph?" She asked.  
"Yeah?" He responded, not raising his eyes to meet hers.  
"Will you... kiss me?"  
"Kathryn... I..." He looked up at her, and before he could gracefully close his eyes or know what to do in this situation, she closed her eyes and forcibly kissed him.  
The kiss was awkward.  
He didn't know what do with his tongue; it was after all, his first time.  
He put his hand on the back of her copper red head.   
She kissed like an experienced fifteen-year-old, slightly wet and slobbery and her tongue was everywhere.  
  
She pulled away, having taken charge. He smiled into her freckly, tanned face and light blue eyes. Her fan of orange lashes brushed against his cheek.  
He was STILL bright red.  
Butterflies danced in his stomach.  
He had no idea what to say, and when he tried to say anything, it was a line of cracked stutters and nervous noises.  
She giggled.  
She giggled a lot.  
  
"I want to join your band." She whispered.  
"Oh..." His voice cracked.  
She giggled again.  
"I know some people who can play instruments!"  
Sephiroth was redder than her hair.  
  
  
Kathryn was Sephiroth's first real girlfriend. She told him all his secrets, all his inner feelings, and all his manly aspirations. He took up, and played fairly badly, the electric guitar. He did little singing- Kathryn took up the vocals.   
She sang poorly, but since she threw a fit every time that she did not get her way, Sephiroth subsided.   
"Seph's whipped." Jake, the electric bassist noted.  
Casey, the drummer, nodded and gestured a whip in the air. "Whuchee! Whipped, man. It's not fair, because I KNOW Seph can sing. I've like, heard him before, man. He can SING! It's not fair. His girlfriend sounds like a banshee."  
  
Although the Mako injections slowed Sephiroth's growth rate dramatically, he still aged slightly faster than other boys. Especially when Hojo left him to do his own injections.   
Often, he wouldn't take them. As a result, Sephiroth began to go gray in his late teen years.   
His pimples went away faster than the other teenage boys.  
He was taller than the other boys.  
His voice was deeper.  
Girls by the dozens had a crush on him.  
  
He and Kathryn didn't last long-, as first romances never do.  
Other boys his age admired and respected him.  
He was in a band, and girls liked him. That was enough to earn heavy respect in high school.  
He grew out his hair, and soon it was a long banner of silver resting on his back.  
He was more mature than the other boys.  
  
He took over the band's vocals after he and Kathryn broke up, and they played many gigs.  
But soon, since his maturity blossomed so quickly, he decided to give up the band- he wanted to do something more with his life.  
Plus, he hated hanging out with stoners and beat-nicks.  
He decided to finally listen to Hojo, and join SOLDIER.   
"After all," He said to himself, "It could quite possibly be the best adult thing to do- and college isn't really for me, I think." 


	5. Part Epsilon

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Epsilon  
Tiferet  
  
"Then, no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant on some desolate street  
or even in the comforts of your own home, you will watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or for worse, you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing that you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.  
And then the nightmares will begin." (Mark Z. Danielwski, House of Leaves)  
  
  
Sephiroth talked all night and into the wee hours of the morning. Eventually, and suddenly he stopped. That session filled up both sides of two tapes.  
He stood, rubbed his throat, and walked into the hallway and disappeared without an explanatory word.  
  
I realized that I had not slept properly in a while when I looked out the basement window and realized that it was morning out.  
But my attention was pulled again to the hallway that Sephiroth came and left in each night.  
I was then convinced that the damn thing was alive. It breathed, ate slept, and grew.  
As the doubt, fear, and darkness filled me, and as Sephiroth came around more, so did these feelings, the hallway grew.  
The hallway reflected the hole in my soul.  
As I have said, as this hole grew, so did that corridor of shadows.  
  
And when I was at my lowest, Sephiroth came back from the misted, sunless lands of the dead.  
  
I figured that I was just going mad.  
That's all.  
  
I figured that I was REALLY going mad the moment that it occurred to me that Sephiroth's childhood experiences were similar to my own. How could I relate to that mad man- I must really be crazy.  
My first girlfriend and first kiss were sort of like his. Only my girlfriend's name was Carla.  
She wanted to sing in our band, too.   
And why was he coming back to talk to ME?  
Me, of all people!  
A poor young journalist from the city of Kalm.  
  
Again, I didn't go to the office. I didn't call, either. I just tucked the three tapes that I had thus far collected into my coat pocket, and walked upstairs and out of the basement.  
  
I stopped off at my apartment upstairs to pick up my dusty brown trench, my shoes, (but no socks) and my cigarettes and lighter.   
They were a really old, stale pack, because I really don't smoke, but I figured taking it up again now was just as good as time as any.  
  
I decided to take a walk.  
  
A really long walk, give myself some fresh air and exercise as I smoke and pollute my lungs.  
I'm not sure what time it was.   
I wasn't even sure what day it was.  
  
I walked through downtown Kalm. There were just a handful of thin eyed, sleepy, and cold people slowly making their way around.  
I walked strait through them and wandered absently to the outskirts of town. As I walked along a dirt road, I stopped to light a cigarette.  
  
There, standing a quarter mile ahead of me was a sandy colored dog.  
With blank, black eyes he was staring at me.  
I smiled and muttered to myself.   
I wonder if he was a stray, but I didn't want to risk walking into a toothy, rabies ridden, death trap.  
So, I didn't make eye contact and decided to turn around and slowly walk away.  
  
As I smoked, I tried not to think about the dog. I was just looking off into the forest on either side of me on the dirt road.  
  
I glanced over my shoulder.  
The shaggy, thin, brown dog was following me.  
  
I quickened my pace.  
  
He quickened his.  
  
As I swiftly walked, I kept thinking about Sephiroth.  
  
Jesus H. Christ- what luck. Getting chased.  
  
I glanced over my shoulder, the dog was right at my heel, but he was not biting or growing, he was sniffing my ankle.  
I felt his breath on my skin.  
So, I stopped.  
  
I asked him if he was lost, or something.  
The dog looked up at me with sad, silky, milked over eyes.  
I shrugged. I am not really a dog person.  
I kept walking. I didn't want to touch him, really.  
He seemed kind of sick.  
  
I then ignored him and his pitiful whimpers, and continued walking and smoking.  
Eventually, the dog wandered off into the forest.  
  
Sad, really, when you think you are loosing it and have no one to talk to.  
Makes me wonder why Sephiroth went out of his way to make that freaky hallway growing in my apartment complex's basement just for me.  
Maybe I deserve it.  
Maybe, like I think happened, I'm making the whole thing up in my head and it is just a big hallucination...  
Who can fuckin' talk to fuckin' dead people anyway?!  
Sephiroth is dead, end of story, man.  
  
...  
  
Sephiroth and I have a lot of things in common, come to think of it.  
Both our childhood feelings and experiences were similar.  
We both have an out of control temper.  
Neither of us had a good father, and an absent mother.  
If I had the chance... fuckit.   
If I had the chance, I'd take over the world.  
I mean,  
Wouldn't you?  
Fuck.  
I bet Sephiroth had a hallway sized hole in his life, you know?  
Grant it, I can't sing, can't carry a tune in a bucket...  
But I write.  
Maybe I am goin' nuts.  
Cracked nuts, pecan nuts, if I could be a nut, I'd be an almond.  
Only one way to know if it's real...  
I should listen to that tape again.  
If it's blank, if Sephiroth's voice isn't on there, then I made the whole thing up.  
Drug flashback...  
Even though this would have to be the WEIRDEST flashback in history.  
  
I turned the corner at the end of the dirt road, only to have another long path-like road stretch out for miles ahead of me.  
The trees on either side sounded like ripping paper as wind caressed the canopies.  
I heard a screech of car tires in the distance, but I didn't think anything of it.  
I noticed something large in the distance on the road.   
Maybe it was a huge rock or a speed bump.  
But as I neared it, it was worse.  
  
The dog, wound up being a huge bloody heap of road kill.  
There were long, curvy, bloody tire tracks around him.  
Hit and run.  
I lit another cigarette.  
Poor fella.  
  
He was still fresh; flies haven't even collected yet.  
I kept walking; the sight of him was a little sad and disgusting.  
  
I began thinking about my band when I was a teenager.  
I played the drums.  
Not very well, though, my dad bought the set for me when I was four.  
It was a huge set, really expensive; I didn't play it till I was in high school.  
Carla wanted to sing.  
Jason, at least, I THINK his name was Jason, it may have been Julian, or something, I don't know, he played the guitar. I remember he bleached his hair, though.  
  
"Hey."  
I looked around.  
"I said. Hey."  
Great. Now I'm hearing voices.  
I started to run.  
I think I dropped my cigarette.  
I wasn't sure where the voice was coming from.  
The voice was cold, and unfeeling, and all around me.  
Much less human than the voice of Sephiroth.  
  
"Don't you listen?"  
I stopped.  
I said out loud that I'm listening, and leave me the fuck alone.  
Crazy-ass people.  
"You've been talking to him, haven't you?"  
I looked to my left, and there, in the forest, was a pair of inhuman eyes.  
They seemed to be floating in the shifting shadows and darkness of the morning forest.  
I asked, quite stupidly, talking to whom?  
"Him... He who cannot die. He who is immortal. He who is a fallen, wicked angel."  
I said to the red, long eyes in the forest, who was fucking talking to me, because I think that I'm crazy, that, yes, as a matter of fact I WAS interviewing him, just like I was talking to you, and why don't you come out of the fucking forest and stop scaring the brown shit out of me? And what business of that was yours, anyway?  
"I feared that this time would come."  
I asked the voice with the red eyes what the fuck he was talking about.  
"I... I came out of sleeping, out of the nightmares, because in my nightmares, I dreamt that he returned, but only as an angel, because angels cannot be killed. He... did it. He... achieved immortality."  
So, what, I asked, is he going to like, try blowing up the world again?  
"No." The sad and empty voice answered, "He cannot do that. The Earth is physical. He, right now, is not physical. He can do no harm. What has he told you?"  
Suddenly, I felt an angry surge of rage course through my veins.  
What business was it of that freaky voice and eyes to know what Sephiroth and I spoke about?  
I suddenly felt very possessive of the tapes that I had in my pocket. It then occurred to me that they were rare, and precious, and mine, as if they were then a part of me.  
As if they were not only Sephiroth's recorded memories, but also my own.  
"Tell me... what you talked to him about... it's paramount-"  
I yelled at the voice, and ran.  
  
I ran back to my apartment complex.  
What has gotten into me?  
  
I took off my shoes, and cigarette stench coat, and threw them onto the sofa.  
I left my TV on again.  
Fuckin' red eyes with freaky voice.  
Tell me what I can and can't do.  
I gotta listen to those tapes, make sure that this is all real and that I'm not goin' batty.  
  
I walk into my tiny apartment kitchen, and opened up the tape player and the first volume of the Sephiroth interview.  
Then, I opened up the fridge.  
As I found a cold slice of ham pizza, I pushed the play button, and turned up the volume...  
  
There was rain in the background of the tape.  
"I find it amusing..."  
Said the voice of Sephiroth under the hiss of rain. Only, it wasn't really Sephiroth's voice, it sounded more like mine...  
But at the same time, it wasn't mine.  
It's hard to explain, but I stopped eating cold pizza as soon as the tape played.  
"Find what... so amusing?" My voice asked on the tape. Again, it didn't sound like my voice, and it wasn't that I wasn't used to hearing me.  
That's just it, I'm a journalist, I hear my voice on tape all the time.  
That wasn't really my voice, either.   
You see, it was that Sephiroth's and my voice sounded close to the same!  
  
"Don't ask why I choose you to be my particular interviewer. Is... that recorder on? Don't ask WHY I wanted to be interviewed. Just do as I say and we will not have a problem..." The tape continued, "Stop listening to the tape. It is unnecessary, and silly. Just continue the interviews as you were- and don't forget the hall-"  
I leapt up and snapped the stop button on the tape player. I didn't want to hear anymore.  
It was too weird, way too fuckin' weird. The voice, both mine and Sephiroth sounded the same.  
And those last few lines WERE NOT in the first interview.  
...  
What was it going to say about that hallway?  
Forget it, I don't want to listen.  
I just want to get some sleep.  
I just want to piss, and shit my pants because I'm so scared.  
And I'm hungry as hell.  
I tried to calm down and just eat my pizza.  
Then, I passed out on the couch.  
... 


	6. Part Zeta

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Zeta  
Hokhmah  
  
"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."(Buddha)  
  
  
  
  
  
Thump!  
Thump!  
Thump!  
  
I groaned. Who could that be, anyway?  
  
Thump!  
Thump!  
Thump!  
  
I groan again, and scream groggily about something along the lines of: Who could that be, leave me alone, and get the fuck off my apartment porch.  
  
But the person at the door kept on thumping.  
  
"Get up off your lazy fuckin' ass, I need to talk to you! It's the apartment manager, don't make me get out the master key and break in."  
  
I yawn, and get up off the couch where I passed out, and answer the door. It was the sour smelling bald man. The apartment manager.  
  
"I loaned you the uh- floor plans of the apartment complex, didn't I?"  
I said yeah, and I also told him that I gave them back.  
"Yeah, I know, I'm not here to gripe about that. It's just uh- well- I was down in the basement yesterday-"  
I suddenly felt more awake, maybe he saw that hallway that stretches for miles into blackness. It's not supposed to be there. But Sephiroth-  
"Listen, I KNOW you were down there. I'm not ACCUSING you of anything, but- uh, the far wall-"  
Yes, yes, that's where the hallway is- I think to myself-  
"It's got all these weird scratches and drawings of angels on it, now. It's really fuckin' creepy. I was just wonderin' who did it. I'm not accusing you, really, I don't care, it's just a fuckin' basement wall. But, uh, I'm wonderin' if we had a break in or something. Did you hear anythin' weird while you were down there?"  
I didn't want to get into it, so I shook my head.  
"See, the other weird thing is, the angel pictures, they all only got one wing. Maybe you should come down and have a look at it. It's like millions of stick figures somebody scratched on the wall. They all look a little different, but, they all got these halos, and like, three arms, or something. More like two arms, and just one wing. Its-it's fucked up man. Freaky. Go take a look at it."  
  
Clearly, any man could tell that the short, fat, lonely, bald, manager was shaken. His normally greasy body was glazed in cold sweat. He was trembling like a leaf in the wind.   
I nodded, and said that I would go look at it when I have a minute.  
Weird.  
I wonder where the hallway went.  
He nodded once more to assure himself, and left.  
  
I went in and showered, more like soaked, for a long time, shaved, and changed clothes. I don't think I had done that in days.  
It's disturbing.  
I haven't even seen them yet, and those drawings are disturbing.  
Maybe I should move.  
Find a new job, start all over again on a different side of town, or something.  
  
I decided to go downstairs, and have a look at what he was going on about.  
Maybe I'm not crazy.  
Maybe the hallway disappeared, or someone is playing a cruel joke.  
Maybe things are getting better, and everything is over and done with.  
  
Maybe things are getting a little worse...  
Fuck.  
  
I go downstairs, and towards the basement.  
Suddenly, it is cold.  
So fucking cold.  
...  
I open the basement door, and walk down the small stair wooden steps.  
I don't want to turn on the lights; I don't want to look.  
I reach for the light cord, and tug it.  
The light bulb hesitates, and flickers on, illuminating the basement.  
There still are smatterings of old boxes and memories on the floor.  
  
I don't want to turn my head to the left, and look at the wall.  
But I do.  
There on the far left brick wall where the endless black hallway used to be, are hundreds of thousands of crudely sketched and scratched drawings of angels.  
Hundreds of them.  
Maybe thousands.  
Chaotically on the wall.  
  
They are all different from another; some of them are like stick figures, and some of them are more realistic, and others are very crude. Some of them have halos. Some are very big and didn't really look like an angel, others were small.  
All of them have one wing.  
  
I whisper curses quietly to myself as I let my eyes crawl around.  
Then, I notice that the drawings are not only on that one wall.  
Most of the floor and ceiling were plastered with them.  
Some of them looked like they were torn from the magazines in the basement boxes, then strewn around.  
  
They covered the wall near the stairway.  
  
Fuck. Fuck... Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...  
What the hell is this?  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Damn.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
On the far shadowed wall near the steps, was a poorly drawn face that looked like mine.  
Next to it was a long silver haired, one winged angel. The angel was holding a mirror, and smiling and looking at me. Behind it was a huge black hallway, or a corridor, or something.  
On the drawing beside that was an elaborate image that looked like the angel and the figure that looked like me, becoming one being.  
The mirror was dropped and shattered, and the sketch of the black hallway was gone.  
  
Then, on the last picture, was just the angel as a human being. And I was gone.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I need to get the hell out of here. 


	7. Part Eta

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Eta  
Din  
  
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (Bible, King James Version-- 1Cor.13)  
  
I wanted to run. Just I needed to just get the hell out of there.  
Whatever Sephiroth was planning to do to me, it wouldn't work. I wouldn't let him take my body, or whatever his plan was. Just like the creepy red eyes with the empty voice said to me; he couldn't come back because he was an angel, and angels were not physical. Maybe he wanted my body, I don't know.  
  
I ran up the wooden basement stairs, and tugged on the door handle. I pounded on the basement door, and yelled, screamed, and wailed.  
It wouldn't budge.  
  
"Trying to leave so soon?"  
Out of the darkness of the basement shadows, Sephiroth appeared. He maneuvered around the scattered boxes with his sword in hand. He smiled. His green eyes caught the light and illuminated the blackness like a feline's.   
I yelled as I pulled on the door that I would have nothing to do with his evil plans.  
  
"'Evil plans?' those are your words, not mine. Why don't you take a seat?"  
I screamed, 'no!' about a billion and one times.  
He simply sat upon the torn up, musty, red, couches rather calmly.  
"Calm yourself." He snapped when my voice started to get horse.  
"Get your tape recorder."  
  
I finally subsided. The tape recorder was left on one of the red sofas.  
I sat down tiered, out of breath, confused, and above all-afraid.  
"Don't turn it on yet. Why are you so upset?"  
I muttered something about the there being a hallway, and now a bunch of scratches of one winged angels, or something along that line.  
  
He laughed.  
  
Then he began to talk.  
I snapped the recorder on.  
~  
  
  
SOLDIER accepted Sephiroth almost immediately. According to the records, his academics were outstanding, he passed the physical agility tests without whim, and hearsay said he would be the next Alexander. Alexander was a former general in SOLDIER that everyone looked up to; he was brilliant, beautiful, and in the best shape of anyone before him.   
Sephiroth was ecstatic that he was accepted. He spent weeks preparing for his summer departure.   
Sephiroth's room at the lab was filled with miscellaneous papers, posters, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, posters, and models. He had many mathematical hobbies.  
He loved to build things.  
He loved to solve things.  
Rarely did he do anything artistically creative.  
  
Before Gast was arrested, he swore that Sephiroth would make a mathematical or strategic genius.  
  
Sephiroth's latest project was penned out on blueprint- he wanted to build a perfect sword made especially for him. He lacked the materials.  
He swore to himself that he would continue the side project when he got into SOLDIER. They would be sure to supply him with what he needed.   
  
There was a rapping on Sephiroth's door.  
He dropped his pile of laundry on the floor, and turned off the blaring opera he had on his tape player.  
  
"Sephiroth! Answer me!" Screeched Hojo from the other side of the door.  
The young Sephiroth rolled his eyes.  
"Did you take the injection today?"   
  
Sephiroth ignored him, and continued packing.   
On his dresser was a framed photograph of professor Gast, Ifalna, and Lucrecia.   
He knew who Gast was, and Ifalna seemed familiar, but he had no idea who Lucrecia was.  
He took the photograph with him.  
He also had a photograph of Hojo.  
He debated on weather taking that with him.  
  
"Sephiroth! Answer this DOOR!"  
Sephiroth sighed, and stumbled over a pile of laundry. He answered the door.  
"Did you inject the medicine?" Hojo invited himself into Sephiroth's laboratory/makeshift bedroom.  
"Yes. Yes, I took it." Sephiroth answered honestly while combing his fingers through his long silver hair.  
"Good. You don't need to be developing wrinkles at your age. It is bad enough that your hair is gra-"  
Sephiroth shot Hojo a cold glare.  
"Are you... packed, boy?"  
"Nearly. I'm not taking half of this crap with me."  
  
Hojo smirked, and tangled his thin fingers behind his hunched back.  
Hojo then stroked his thin, hairless chin.  
"You know-I'm proud of you-making something of yourself instead of wasting your life in that useless music band you were into a while ago."  
Sephiroth didn't reply. He only continued packing his clothes.  
He would never tell Hojo that he loved to sing.  
  
"What else was I going to tell you?" Hojo mused.  
Sephiroth just wished that he would leave as so he could pack in peace.  
He had an odd relationship with Hojo- never once did he call him father, but he was the closest thing to.  
"I don't know, you tell me. What were you going to tell me?"  
"Don't get smart with me. That would be the STUPIDEST thing you could do right now. Because, I can not let you go."  
"Not really. I'm an adult, now. I can go if I want to."  
"Ha! That's what you think, boy."  
Sephiroth rolled his eyes again while his back was to Hojo.  
Hojo cursed Sephiroth under his breath, and slowly walked further into the room.  
  
"I can't wait till I can get the heck out of here. Thank god for SOLDIER." Sephiroth muttered under his breath.  
Sephiroth began packing his many books. He loved to read, both fiction and non fiction. He especially loved philosophy and physics books.  
But he hated the far-out unrealistic fantasy.  
He thought that was just stupid.  
He figured that if the novel had a talking animal, that the animal should be quarantined and put under study- or just shot.  
  
He loved the novel, "Brave New World."  
"Hojo..."  
"What?" The doctor snapped a little irritated as he was examining some plane models Sephiroth had built in his room.  
"What was mother's name?" He flatly asked without looking at Hojo. He kept his hands busy as he waited under the heavy hesitation of Hojo for an answer.  
  
"...Lu- Jenova. Her name was Jenova. Why do you ask?"  
"I wanted to know before I left. That's all. I- well, you know that I never knew her. What was she like- did you know her well?" Sephiroth asked as he quickly stuffed some Materia in his bag that Hojo didn't know he had.  
"She was... No, I didn't know her well."  
"What did she look like?" He asked as he flipped through a rutty old book that he decided against taking.  
"She was... a lot like you."  
"How's that?" Sephiroth lifted his bright green eyes curiously.  
"She died while giving birth to you." Hojo added dismissively.  
"How was she like me?"  
"Science. She was like a science experiment."  
"What?!"  
"I mean, she was dedicated to science, and mathematics, much like you."  
"I think I've come across that name before in some of the files- Jenova." Sephiroth said as he rose to his feet while hoisting up a heavy bag.  
"That's all. I'll see you later once you are fully packed." Hojo stroked his face and headed for the door.  
"Oh! And stay OUT of those FILES! They ARE CLASSIFIED! That MEANS they are not for YOUR EYES!" He slammed the door as he left.  
  
"Jenova. Pretty name, eh, mom?" Sephiroth sighed, and said to himself. He scanned the room once more deciding what and what not to take with him to SOLDIER. The blue prints- he had to take them with him.   
He would name the sword, "Masamune," after the old mythological stories.  
Sephiroth scratched his head.  
Masamune was the first Samurai to use two swords.  
He was a great swordsman, according to ledgend.  
Sephiroth wanted to become a great swordsman, more so than anything.  
Perhaps even more so than the desire to sing.  
He was already good with the sword, but SOLDIER would make him great...  
Singing... it leads to nothing.  
  
That's why he left the band.  
He wanted to be stronger than any man... as unrealistic as that sounded...  
He wanted to be great, to be famous, to have other men look up to his strength, to be honored.  
  
He smiled and laughed quietly at himself as he lifted his bags.  
He thought he was silly.  
At least he was striving for something.  
  
He never met another man who could thus far beat him in sparrs.  
Doesn't matter.  
Just because you win doesn't make you great, he said to himself.  
Oh well.  
  
Perhaps mother would be proud, if she were alive.  
Suddenly, it occurred to him that she died as so he could live.  
Why didn't Hojo tell him that before- because he thought that he would feel guilty?   
Perhaps.  
But, she thought that he was good enough to die for- he suddenly felt loved and appriciated...  
  
Sephiroth wished he knew such a nobel woman.  
She wasn't like Hojo.  
Hojo was a cold man- Sephiroth thought as he walked out of his room.  
What if Hojo was lying to him, as he had done in the past... What if she were alive?   
Unlikely.  
Jenova.  
  
...  
  
...  
Sephiroth wished he knew Jenova. 


	8. Part Theta

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Theta  
Nezah  
  
"Listen, or thy tongue will keep thee deaf." (American Indian Proverb.)  
  
  
  
If I tell you something, you promise that you won't hold it against me.  
  
Ok.  
  
Here goes.  
  
You know how I can like, really really relate to Sephiroth's childhood?  
  
Well, uh, maybe you know.  
  
Well, I did something really horrible back in my childhood.  
  
And I don't mean like, shooting bottle rockets up cat's butts or anything like that.  
Shit, we all did stupid things.  
  
But I mean, really...  
  
Really bad.  
  
Sephiroth has done a lot of evil shit in his days.  
Maybe we are way more alike than I thought.  
Maybe that's why he's come to visit me in what I think are my dreams.  
Maybe I'm going mad.  
He went mad.  
Holy shit.  
Are we...  
The same?  
  
Shit.  
Fuck.  
Damn.  
  
...  
...  
  
What am I going to do?  
  
I... uh, never really knew my parents, either.  
See, just like him, my mom wasn't around.  
Fact, I never knew my mom.  
And my dad... well, my dad was a little like Hojo.  
  
He was cold, and stern.  
He was a doctor, gave me a lot of crap when I was little and growing up.  
  
What did I do that was so terrible, that no one ever knew?  
  
I burned my house down when I was little.  
  
No, that's not just it.  
  
...  
  
Damn...  
  
  
My...  
  
My sister was in the house at the time.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I know.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They thought it was an accident, too.  
  
  
God.  
  
  
  
  
  
Damn.  
  
  
  
  
  
I didn't do it on purpose.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Fuck, I'm just like Sephiroth.  
  
  
  
  
I got to get out of Kalm. I want this shit to end, you know?  
I'm an educated man; I got my masters degree as a journalist.  
Then, why can't I just leave?  
I got an idea.  
I'm going to take pictures.  
I'm going to take pictures of Sephiroth.  
I'm going to take pictures of that hallway.  
Then, I can prove this to my cousin, Misty, and to everyone.  
  
My apartment manager saw the scratches on the wall.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I hope that I wasn't the one who put them there. 


	9. Part Iota

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Iota  
Keter  
  
"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change." (Confucius)  
  
  
It took me a while to find my camera.  
I knew that I had one from back in my college days, a good one with fresh film, and everything.  
It was one of those uh- Polaroid things, the picture spat out immediately after taking them. It just took a second after it spat out to develop.  
  
I hadn't gone to the office in days.  
I'm sure they figured that I was either dead in the gutter, or quit. There were a lot of messages on my machine; I wasn't about to check them.  
  
Again, I'm not sure what time it was, what month it was, what day it was, fuck, I don't even know what year it is anymore.  
  
I walked down from my apartment and toward the basement, armed with the camera, film, and the multiple tapes I had of Sephiroth's and mine conversations.  
I was going to do it; I was going to document for sure that Sephiroth had returned.  
  
Not only that he has returned, but also he was talking about his mysterious past.  
Not just to anyone, but to me.  
  
Down I went, into the basement.  
  
The tiered sun of the anonymous day slid in through the panel of ground level windows.  
I plucked the string of the single bulb light.  
  
It paused, coughed, and then flickered on.  
  
I took a deep breath...  
  
There, like it has been before, was the hallway.  
The drawings from a few days previous have for the most part, vanished.  
A few of the larger ones remained.  
The panel drawings that featured me were still there, alongside the steps that lead on.  
They were the ones that creeped me the most.  
They were the ones that to any logical mind, would tell you that Sephiroth was looking to find a human body to encompass.   
He was looking to come back, was my suspicions.  
Just like the thin voice with the narrow red eyes said days before.  
  
I aimed the camera towards the hallway as I walked in.   
I kept shooting.  
Click  
Click  
Click  
Click  
Click  
  
The pictures tumbled to the floor like lost doves without wings.  
  
Then, I turned and took photos of the drawings.  
Click   
Click  
Click   
Click  
Click  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
I aimed my camera at Sephiroth as he walked in through the long, black, cold, hallway that seemed to have stretched for miles.  
The hallway seemed agitated.  
It seemed to breathe, and grow, and the more I took pictures, the more of the basement it seemed to swallow.  
  
"WHAT are you DOING?!"  
  
Click   
Click  
Click  
Click  
Click  
  
I said to Sephiroth, that I was just acting as a journalist, that's all.  
  
"Hm. Well, good luck."  
  
It then occurred to me that it was daylight out a moment ago, and now it seems the light was gone.  
  
The photos were not coming out well.  
I don't think that I ever saw Sephiroth, or the hallway, when it was light out.  
  
I stopped shooting, and picked up a photo. I waved it in the air until the image appeared.  
Sephiroth made himself at home, as he usually does, on the old red sofas.  
  
The photos of the wall sketches seemed to be blurry, as if there was poor lighting.  
The photos of the hallway looked like it was not a hallway, but instead a long black, misty tunnel...  
  
The photos of Sephiroth...  
  
They looked like they were pictures of me goofing off, as if I was holding the camera, and pointed it at my face, then snapped it.  
There was an odd light in the background in each of them.  
  
I dropped those pictures.  
  
I pointed the camera at Sephiroth again.  
He was sitting on the sofa; he wasn't even looking at me.  
  
The picture spat out, I took it, waved it in the air, and looked at it.  
  
It was a photo of me, sitting on the sofa, and looked as if I took the picture. There was a strange light in the background.  
  
"Give it up." Sephiroth said finally.  
  
I was getting frustrated.  
  
"Just give IT UP! Get over here. Get that tape recorder. Save the photo taking for your job."  
  
I said nothing, and did what I was told.   
Like always, there was a fresh tape in the recorder.  
I didn't want to do this anymore.  
We were too much the same...  
And I didn't like that.  
  
~  
  
Sephiroth spent many, many years in SOLDIER before he was a general.  
For the most part, the transition was easy.  
He loved life as a soldier.  
He was given something to believe in, something and someone to fight for.  
He was given an opportunity to develop a skill that he loved- his fighting.  
He was a master at hand-to-hand, and was a developing master in sword-skill.  
  
Now, he just needed a situation to prove himself, and become a real master.  
  
Maybe even a real hero.  
  
Maybe people will then respect him, and look up to him, to honor and remember him, like he always wanted.  
  
Singing was just a hobby.  
  
Being a general will get you somewhere.  
  
Sephiroth wanted, deeply, to be a hero.  
  
The kind of guy that mothers tell stories to their young ones at night.  
  
"Don't worry, baby, if the boogie-man comes, just call for Sephiroth, he will come save you." "Then, honorable-general-Sephiroth came on his noble steed, and saved the princess and the world from destruction..."  
  
Save the world from destruction...  
Yeah...  
  
He and the guys went, on weekends, to a nightclub.  
There, they could relax, and for just a moment, forget about being a SOLDIER.  
  
When Sephiroth was really drunk, he'd get up and sing.  
Even when he was shit-faced-drunk, according to most people, he sounded fantastic.  
But, he just told them to piss off, and then he would laugh.  
  
The nightclub was called, "The Phantom Wall Room."  
  
  
"Hey, Seph?"  
"What?"  
"Pass me the jug of beer, would ya?"  
"If you don't spill it all over yourself."  
"I... won't! I'm-not-that-drunk."  
"Yeah, right."  
Sephiroth pushed the jug of beer over to Marty. Marty was like him, a third class SOLDIER. Next year, if they prove themselves, they would be promoted to second class. Marty and Zack were his closest friends.  
He was the responsible, mature one of the group.  
(That means he never got as fuck-faced as everyone else on a weekly basis.)  
  
  
"Zack...?"  
"Huh?"  
"Zack!"  
"What!"  
"So, eh, how's things with you and that- girl?" Sephiroth asked slightly curiously with a wry grin. Sometimes when Zack was completely gone- he'd talk explicitly about his sex life with Aeris.  
Everyone thought it was funny.  
It was Sephiroth's turn to ask.  
"Oh, uh-" Zack laughed out loud spilling some of his vodka and tonic all over his left pant leg.  
"Shit, you know what she wanted last time I saw her?"  
The men laughed. Sometimes Zack made stuff up about his sex life with Aeris, sometimes he didn't. Everything is hilarious when you are with the guys, at a nightclub, talking loudly, and drinking.  
Every conversation was usually about sex, though.  
  
Sephiroth glanced over his shoulder.  
He caught the eye of a woman.  
He shook his head.  
  
Zack said something stupid, but he didn't pay attention.  
Marty ordered more beer.  
  
The performance tonight wasn't bad. Sephiroth knew that if he had a few more drinks, that he would be drunk enough to get up and sing.  
He wasn't really in the mood, tonight, though.  
  
"Hey, Seph! You goin- up- hic- t'night, or you still dry!? Have another-" Marty pushed a shot of something clear in his direction. Sephiroth shook his head.  
"Not tonight."  
"Awwww!"  
"Nope. Not tonight. Don't feel like it, really." Sephiroth slid off his barstool. He felt like going for a night walk, maybe sober up- and loose the slight buzz.  
  
The boys didn't miss him. They forgot almost immediately after he walked out and another round was ordered.  
  
As he walked out of the nightclub, knots of people stood around the dim doorway.  
Some if them were pushers, a couple of them were hookers looking for lonely soldiers. One huge man with a twisted dark face was a bouncer.  
  
Sephiroth passed them all. He figured that he might as well just go strait back to camp and get some sleep.  
He felt especially lonely that night for some reason.  
"Hey! Hey, wait up!"  
  
Sephiroth walked on. He didn't think that the woman's voice was directed at him.  
The moon was a white slice against the navy blue sky. Sand was speckled around the horizon making up the tiny crystal stars. The air was crisp and chilled his lips and fingertips.  
  
"I said, HEY!"  
  
Sephiroth turned around.  
A woman in a tight black shirt was catching her breath. Her red jacket was sliding off her shoulders. She was balancing-badly- on her high-heeled shoes.  
Her dark brown curly hair was all messed up from trying to catch up to him.  
  
"Hey... uh-" She began as she fixed her jacket.  
"Hi?" He asked, slightly bemused, and slightly off-sandish. He was hoping that she wasn't a hooker looking for something. He wasn't the type. He's heard stories...  
"Listen, I'm not- I' not that kinda guy. Look for someone else..."  
The woman looked confused, and lightly offended.  
Sephiroth walked on.  
  
"HEY!"  
"What, I mean, listen, lady, I was trying to be NICE... but my friend Marty might be looking- listen- he's in the bar- you can't miss him, bright red-"  
"JESUS! I'm not a hooker! My friend just wanted me to give you her NUMBER! She saw you at the bar, and thought you were kinda cute. Just give her a RING will ya? She's got long light brown hair, and brown eyes. She said you looked at her."  
"Oh." He felt himself turn red.  
The woman gave him a slip of note, and walked away.  
  
He took the number, but never called. Zack said he was crazy and said that she was hot and was looking at him all night.  
  
The following week, he forgot completely about her. It was a Saturday night, and Sephiroth and his friends were again at "The Phantom Wall Room." They were planning on getting fuck-faced that night.   
Just as Sephiroth, Marty, Zack, and a few other soldiers were on their third round of drinks, a group of young, single women walked into the bar.  
One of them, Sephiroth recognized.  
"Zack," Sephiroth tapped Zack's shoulder and whispered.  
"That's HER, the one who gave me the number."  
"So go talk to her." Zack grunted back.  
"Who?!" Marty butted in.  
"Seph's goin' on about some chick he met last week. I guess she just walked in, but Seph's a chicken."  
"Oh." Marty said.   
Sephiroth contorted his face.  
"I'm not a CHICKEN, for chrissakes! I just don't know which one the number belong-"  
  
The girl caught his eye again.  
The longhaired girl, with brown eyes.  
  
The woman ducked her head, smiled, and began to talk to her friends.  
Some of the other girls glanced at him, giggled, and continued talking.  
  
"Go- fuckin'talk-to-her!" Marty slapped his shoulder, and drunkenly encouraged, "Or I will!"  
"Yeah, just go, for god's sakes," Zack said coldly, "Your acting like a fool."  
  
Sephiroth nodded, took another shot, and walked over to the group of women.  
They all looked up. There was about seven of them.  
"You never called her!" The one in the tight shirt blurted out, breaking the pause.  
"Never got a chance to." He tried to act cool, and suave. He was nervous as hell. He felt arms sweat, and his face turn pink.  
He tried to smile.  
The woman dropped her head into her folded arms on the table.  
"You guys are embarrassing me!" She choked. The group of women laughed.  
"Go-on, SOLDIER-boy, go buy Katrina a drink!"  
  
Sephiroth felt himself nearly vomit in drunken nervousness. He felt the drinks he had slosh around in his stomach and in his head. The world seemed to spin-but-Katrina- (was that her name?) was very... very beautiful.  
At least she was under the dim lights and around three and a half drinks.  
  
They sat up at the bar together. The room was loud, busy, and dark. People were elbowing his shoulders as he sat at the stool. Katrina seemed quiet, and relatively shy.  
  
"Want anythin'" The bar tender asked as he approached them.  
"Strawberry daiquiris." She answered.  
"Same." Seph answered after a pause. He couldn't think of anything else.  
  
"So... what's your name?" She asked. Her eyes were brown... big and brown. She had a smattering of small freckles on her nose.  
  
"Sephiroth."  
"Interesting name."  
"Uh, and you?"  
"What?" She asked as the daiquiris arrived.  
"What's your name?"  
"Katrina. Katrina Cyrinski. Listen, uhm, I'm sorry about my friends, I'm just a little nervous, you know? I never really go to bars, or anything, and I never really ask any guys out, but, I bet you already have a girlfriend, and everything, and I bet I'm really just being stupid, so- if you don't want me here, I'll just go back to my table, ok?"  
  
Sephiroth paused, and blinked, and wondered if, for a moment, she breathed at all in that whole sentence.  
  
He smiled.  
  
She blushed, and thought that she was acting dumb. 


	10. Part Kappa

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Kappa  
Hod  
  
"This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." (T.S. Eliot, 'The Hollow Man.')  
  
"So, where are you from? You have a hometown?"  
"Not really. No."  
"Uhm... I'm from Mideel, originally."  
"Really? Where's that?"  
"For off- to the East. I think. From here. Small town."  
"Oh."  
"So... what do your parent's do?"  
"My mother's name was Jenova. She died giving birth to me... My father?" He shook his head, chuckled, and stopped himself.  
She paused.  
"So... uhm, what brought you into SOLDIER?"  
"Honestly?" He asked.  
"Yeah. Honestly."  
"I want to become a great soldier, like Alexander- but even greater."  
"Your friends told me that you sing."  
"Well, not really."  
"Not really?"  
"Not much anymore, anyway. I like music- classical music, mostly."  
"Oh."  
  
Sephiroth and Katrina sat together while talking quietly on a cool winter's day. It was raining heavy, frosted, raindrops outside. The weather smeared itself against the windows, and battered the rooftops with tiny rhythmic feet.  
  
It was a Sunday morning, and they met for coffee.  
  
"I like all kinds of music..." She began. She figured out quickly that getting him to volunteer information about himself was as easy as pulling teeth from a crocodile with a pair of pliers.   
  
"Oh yeah? Like what?"  
  
"Well, uhm, blues, jazz, a LITTLE classic. Alternative. I really like-like- that kind of music, you know? Light rock."  
  
Sephiroth's expression was somewhat blank. He did not want to look disgusted, but he was by no means a fan of rock.  
Musically, he could appreciate it- and even understand it, but it just was not his forte.   
He slid a lock of his lengthy silver hair behind his ear. He glanced out the window.  
"Penny for your thoughts?" She asked.  
"Oh- uh- Just thinking-"  
"About?" She raised a brow and quipped a grin.  
"Hojo."  
"And he's-?"  
"An... A- uh, doctor. Professor, actually. I donno."  
"Yeah?"  
"Yeah. He had a lot to do with my life, you know."  
"Oh." She decided not to push it any further. The look in his great green eyes was distant.  
  
  
As the weeks progressed, Sephiroth and Katrina were seen more and more often together. He would meet other women, but they would not strike his fancy as she had. She was gentle, awkward, sometimes even aggressive, but in the end- understood his ways- and gave him space.  
Sephiroth was quick to temper.  
His moods quickly fluxgates.  
He needed a lot of time alone.  
  
He was quick to laugh, and even quicker to stop laughing.  
  
Often he would space out, as if deep in pensive thought about something, and never wanted to be asked on what it was he was reflecting upon.  
Often, it was about Hojo...  
And Jenova.  
  
He snapped when asked about that.  
  
She was very easygoing, and relatively patient with him and his eccentricities.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
Eventually, she asked him to evaluate the relationship- where were they going?  
  
  
  
He smiled strangely.  
  
  
  
Then, he said,  
  
  
"Well, I THOUGHT we were going out..."  
  
  
She giggled, then said,  
  
  
"Tacking the word, 'boyfriend' on to you seems sort of weird."  
  
  
He chuckled.  
  
  
Then, said nothing more about it.  
  
  
~  
  
  
I never realized just how human he was.  
They don't tell you that he feels nervous around women in history books and in news articles.  
  
Sure, he went mad later on.  
  
But in the beginning he was just like you, just like me.  
  
Shit, that makes you think, don't it?  
  
Made me think, anyway.  
  
Made me think about my life, and what's goin' on now.  
  
When Sephiroth finished talking that evening- about Katrina- or whatever her name was, something like that, he had a mysterious grin on his sharp face. It was sort of evil, lurking, and at the same time, really funny.  
I don't know.  
He rubbed his throat, and left down the endless dark hallway.  
I stopped the tape and put it with the others I had.  
It was early morning out when he ended.  
  
Time is a weird thing; I think I loose time, or time gets all fucked up when I'm in the basement.  
Because I remember when I started talking to him, it was light out, the next thing I knew it was dark, now it's light again.  
I have NO CLUE on the time right now.  
It could be three months from now from when this all started happening, hell, I don't know. Maybe it's in the past... Jesus.  
  
After I left the basement, I made a decision; I am going to leave, and not come back. I'm tiered of this nonsense.  
I KNOW Sephiroth is dead  
I KNOW that.  
  
I'm tiered of not knowing what time it is.  
  
I'm tiered of being freaked out, of not sleeping at night, or at anytime.  
You know what?  
Did I tell you about the few times that I HAVE fallen asleep?  
No?  
Well, I'm having these fucked up nightmares.  
Yeah, that's right.  
  
I don't even want to talk about them; Sephiroth is in them, and so are those freaky red eyes that spoke to me when I was taking a walk that one-day.  
God.  
Ever since this whole thing started I've become more and more intertwined with Sephiroth's interviewing, that's why I hate it, that's why I hate this whole thing. It has become my whole life.  
That, and I don't know what's going on.  
Is this all a dream, a hallucination, is this all inside my head?  
I DON'T KNOW~!  
  
And what's with the hallway?!  
What's with those drawings?!  
What was with that voice and those red eyes that once day!?   
Did I really see and hear it!?  
  
  
  
I' giving up; I don't care if I'm breaking my lease or not, I'm just getting up and leaving, taking some of my savings from the Bank of Kalm and going.  
  
I don't want to really LEAVE town, just find someplace else to live for a little while, that's all.  
  
That very afternoon, I did just that. I took my records out from the basement, packed all my things, (TV, radio, clothes, a couple of small pieces of furniture,) called my friend, Jon, and told him that I was moving in.  
Jon's a really cool guy; he was surprised to hear from me though.  
  
"Dude, you haven't called me in how long, and now you want to move IN?"  
I told him that I thought that I was loosing my mind, that this was really serious, and it would just be for a couple of weeks, tops, just until things start calming down in my life.  
  
He understood, plus, he didn't have a TV, I did, and I was taking it with me, so it was ok.  
He kind of took it as an early mid-life crisis.  
  
I asked Jon how long it's been since I called him. Last I remember it was like, two weeks ago.  
  
He's said that it has been three months. He thought that I was dead or something. He said that he's left at least seven messages on my machine, and then gave up.  
  
I don't know, I think it was that time thing.  
  
It took all afternoon, and I didn't take everything from my apartment that I was planning on taking.  
He said that I looked like shit, said I lost like thirty pounds. I don't know, I haven't been paying attention to any of that.  
Jon is also a writer, but not like I am. That's how we started out being friends. He writes epic novels that are completely brilliant- but has never had any of them published. I bet he could if he tried.  
  
He works as a manager for a pharmaceutical warehouse for a living. Works with a bunch of guys who don't speak English.  
  
"So, dude, how long were you plan on stayin' again?" He asked as we dumped the last bit of the shit that I was taking into the threshold of his apartment.  
I told him that I didn't know, as soon as things were going to start to calm down.  
"Do you... want to talk about it, hoss?"   
I told him, fuck no.  
Fuck no.  
Fuck no.  
  
He then nodded, and offered me a beer.  
  
I took the beer, and threw myself onto his sofa.  
  
My head span, and I felt relived that I was away from the basement of my apartment building. Accidentally, I took the tapes and a couple of the photos with me. They were in my coat pocket.  
  
  
He sighed, and began moving my stuff into the spare bedroom. He's a good guy, Jon. I owe him a lot.  
  
I dozed off into sunless gray dreams.  
  
The window in the apartment was open, and as I slept on the couch, a light-drifting zephyr slid into the room. She touched me with her slender fingers of breezes and wind kisses.   
  
I woke up slowly.  
  
It must have been around midnight, or so.  
  
I was starting to feel a little calmer, a little saner, and a whole lot better, by just being away for a while.  
I felt like me again.  
I realized when I woke up just how dehydrated and hungry I was.   
  
I raided Jon's fridge and cupboards, then plopped myself in front of the TV and watched a whole bunch of infomercials   
The glow of the television danced across the splintered shadows of the midnight room.  
  
"Oxy Clean Equals OXY fresh! Just OXY the stain out, vola! SEE The STAIN Is Gone!!! Isn't That AMAZING!?"  
"Wow, Author! I've Never Seen Anything So Clean, And Look At That! Instantly CLEAN! Just Look At My Grout, OXY Clean Cleans My Garage, My Cat Box, My Bathroom, My Bedroom, My Laundry, My Husband's Dirty-Cheating Ways, My Dishwasher, My Oven, It Turns All My Kid's Report Cards Into Strait A's!!"  
"Wow!"  
"WOW!"  
"OXY CLEAN!!!!!!"  
  
I love infomercials. Strait out lies. Makes me feel so comfortable and safe in the world knowing that there is a product in the world that is so fucking wonderful, that they can go on for ten strait hours about it with smiles. Must be some cleaning product. I thought for a second there that he was going to cum all over himself because he was so ecstatic about this Oxy thing.  
If I was Arthur, I'd shoot myself.  
I mean, who can keep a strait face that long? If I were him, I'd be cracking up during the taping of that commercial. I mean, come on, be serious!?  
Oxy fucking Clean.  
I want to order that shit.  
  
I paused, and sighed, and flipped the channel. Another infomercial. The Sowakowa Pillow.  
Great, it's a pillow that's also a can opener, and a head massage.   
Am I really that sarcastic and jaded?  
Nooooooo...  
  
I'm really not; it's just been lately, ever since this Sephiroth thing started, I've just been questioning everything that's been real. That's all.  
Fuck, I have the tapes in my pocket, don't I?  
I've been thinking too much, too.  
  
I turn off the TV when it occurred to me that the Sephiroth tapes were with my things.  
  
I glanced over my shoulder and over the sofa backing. I could have sworn that I heard something, or someone.  
Great, now I'm paranoid.  
  
I got up off the sofa, and walk into my guest room. Jon was dead asleep; I heard his soft snoring...  
  
I dug through my things until I uncovered my coat, and I took out the photos and the tapes.  
I flipped through the photos that I head- I left many of them back in the basement.  
  
The drawings. The photos of the drawings were a little hazy and blurry for some odd reason, even though the conditions for the picture were perfect when I took them.  
  
I found an old pencil on the floor.  
  
I squinted in the pale, blue, night-light that slid through the far window of the mostly empty room. I was trying to make out the images in the photograph. I wanted to reproduce them, I wanted to know what those one-winged angel drawings really meant; I wanted to show Jon. My curiosity was flicking madly.   
  
I started to draw on the walls- just what they looked like.  
  
I wound up drawing all night, and by the time that I was done, the entire room was plastered in chaotic one winged angel drawings- like they were in the basement.  
  
I also covered up all the ventilations, windows, and doors. I could have sworn that I heard Sephiroth's voice somewhere, and I didn't want him or that hallway appearing in my room. I ducted taped the vents, covered up all cracks, flipped the bed in front of the window and ducted taped that there, and taped the cracks around the door.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I felt like that was the only way that I could sleep again, because I SWORE that I heard Sephiroth's voice.  
  
I curled up on Jon's guest room's hard wood floor, and tried not to twitch.  
God, I had to piss, too. 


	11. Part Lamda

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Lamda  
Kabbalah  
  
"LSD melts your mind, not in your hand." (Anonymous.)   
  
I slept dreamlessly, inside of Jon's guest room, that I so quickly, so artfully, destroyed under one night's milky moon. I covered up and openings and all ventilations, and drew all over the walls.  
Pictures of one winged angels.  
Like the ones that were in my apartment complexes' basement.  
  
That morning, Jon banged on the guest room door.  
I shot awake.  
  
"Hey, HEY, Jesus, smells like piss in here. Hey, you OK in there!?" He yelled.  
"Door's locked! Hey!"  
  
I yelled back, that, uh, yes, I was fine.  
I unblocked the door, taking out the socks that I had stuffed under the crack.  
  
"JESUS!" He screamed when he walked in.  
  
I had pissed on the wall that night- I was too afraid to come out of my room. I blocked everything because I was paranoid, and thought Sephiroth was after me. There were pencil scratches, marks, and drawings all over the walls. The mattress was duct taped to the window- to block it and keep it in place.  
The vents were also taped up. The closet, too.  
  
"God, what the hell did you DO?!" Jon yelled, looking at my blood shot eyes.  
"What the fuck is wrong with you- psycho?" Jon kicked my shit around the floor, and took the tape off the mattress, letting it fall to the floor.  
  
I said, sorry, man, nightmares.  
  
"Nightmares my ass! Clean this shit up! Jesus H. Christ. Freaky. These drawings."  
  
I spent all afternoon, cleaning up the guest room, re-painting the walls, and untaping everything. I don't know why I did that. I don't know what happened to me at night. I was afraid that the hallway would come back- like that gaping hole in my life, and Sephiroth would come through and find me. I don't know, maybe I am crazy.  
  
That night, Jon set up a bed for me. A proper one. I guess he felt sorry for me and was even a little afraid. I was just glad that he didn't kick me out.  
He said if I had anymore nightmares that would cause me to piss and draw all over the walls, to wake him up, and not block the door or window. I said, ok.  
And I said that I was sorry- and I was- really.  
I went through some of my stuff before I went to bed, found my CD player, and a few CD's and old tapes. Eric Clapton. Muddy Waters. Matalica. Thelonias Monk. George Gershwin. What the fuck is Mozart doing in here? ...  
Didn't think I brought that.  
I felt like listening to the blues.  
Eric Clapton, for now.  
"From the Cradle." Best album from him yet.  
  
"Got me accused of seeing, but I can't see a thing."   
Sing it, brother.  
I know how you feel.  
"Bad luck is killing me..."  
  
Yeah. I know how you feel, man.  
  
"Well, I just can't stand, no more, of this third degree..."  
  
I sighed, rolled over, closed my eyes, and tried imagining someone else's eyes, besides those gigantic green orbs- that is Sephiroth's.  
  
I tried picturing my ex girlfriend's. She had brown eyes. Big brown eyes. Sort of like the way he described Katrina's. She was sexy, too. She had a little bit of meat on her ass.  
Shouldn't talk about her like that, though. She was special to me.  
I turned out the light, and thought about her under the crying sound of Eric Clapton's guitar, and sonorous, sad voice.   
"Got me accused of taxes, but I ain't got a dime..." He sang. "Bad luck is killing me..."  
I was starting to feel better, no longer paranoid that Sephiroth would find me hiding away in my friend's guest room.  
This night was going to be the first night of being me again.  
  
Shit, what the fuck was that?!  
  
That- noise- that voice- coming from the closet.  
  
Did Jon have a cat?  
  
No, no, he didn't Jon lived alone. I knew that.  
  
Shit.  
  
Hear that?!  
  
That voice, that noise, a low, low, mumble...  
  
"Bad luck... is killing me."  
  
"Bad luck is killing me....  
  
"Killing me."  
  
"Killing me."  
  
"Killing me."  
  
I think the CD is skipping.  
  
"Killing me."  
  
"Killing me."  
  
I rolled out of bed, I forgot about the CD.  
  
It kept playing that line over and over again.  
  
The noise was coming from the closed closet.  
  
I was afraid, and I felt the coldness of sweat under my arm pit as the wind from the open window blew.  
  
I flung open my closet.  
  
The first thing that I noticed, was all my stuff was gone.  
The second thing that I noticed, was the backing of the wall had disappeared.  
The third thing that I noticed...  
  
"Killing me."  
  
"Killing me."  
  
"Killing me."  
  
Was that the darkness that was there, was shifting.  
It was the hallway.  
The Sephiroth hallway had appeared.  
Sephiroth was coming.  
  
The hallway that he comes to me from.  
The hallway that must lead to the land of the dead, where angels go to die, or to vanish, and to reappear.  
  
"Killing me."  
  
"Killing me."  
  
"Killing me."  
  
Shit. Fuck. Mother. Son of a fucking...  
  
He fucking FOUND me!  
  
I wonder what was in that hallway if I just up and went...  
  
"Hey."   
  
I turned around, and he was sitting on my bed.  
  
"It takes me to you, that hallway." Sephiroth said. He seemed so large, sitting there. The proportion of his self, and my bed, just don't fit. It seemed that my bed was much too small for him. Everything about him is huge. He is much taller than I, and I am near six foot. His shoulders are bulbous, and round, his eyes are wide and like the valleys, his angelic hair is long, and gray like waifs of mist.   
I said, oh.  
  
"Wherever you are. Are you trying to run from me?"  
  
I told him flat out that he was ruining my life. That, I didn't deserve this- going mad, because he couldn't be real.  
That when I went for a walk, a pair of red eyes in the forest told me not to talk to him anymore. That you were trying to come back again-  
Sephiroth stopped me from babbling when he laughed.  
  
"Let me tell you something, boy. I am merely doing nothing to you but telling you my life story. Isn't that what you want? To give you the story of a century!? I'm making your career!" He stood, and raised his head and hands dramatically- theatrically. I said nothing.  
"I'll give you a choice- a choice! Go down that hallway. Or don't. If you do, I'll tell you the truth about me- about everything- EVERYTHING. You would know what it is like to be an angel, and how I became one... A one winged angel. Like you see me now. Would that be... NICE? Never grow old, never die... If you don't I swear that I'll never come back."  
  
I told him that he did die. That Cloud killed him. He laughed, and flickered a smile.  
  
"Did I? How do you really know if someone is dead? Sure, they grow cold, their body- the vassal, dies, but how do you know if there is a Lifestream, a spirit, wouldn't I have one as well?"  
  
I didn't know what to say.  
I looked down the hallway.  
I don't know.  
The room seemed to be red, then.  
  
"Killing me."  
"Killing me."  
"Killing me."  
  
"Now. Make a choice. Go. Or stay. But I promise you everything if you go down... there. I promise."  
  
I asked, wait, wait, what happened- to him- and Katrina...? The story, the tapes? I thought that we were interviewing...?  
  
He smiled again.  
  
"You just want to do your job, then? And not become one with the story that you are covering?"  
  
No, I said. No. That's not my job. My job is to observe. Truly. I understood, then, you see... I couldn't become one with the story, not yet.  
  
I glanced down the hallway again.  
  
"Killing me."  
"Killing me."  
"Killing me." 


	12. Part Mu

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Mu  
Sefirot  
  
"Step out of the front door, into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white." (Counting Crows, 'Round Here*' off the album, 'August, and Everything After.')  
  
It has become my life, officially. His life story.   
I guess I can't go back.  
He talked, all that night, and the tape recorder, fuck.  
It just follows me, too.  
  
~  
  
Sephiroth sat at his desk, running his eyes over a stack of papers.   
"I don't know." He told Katrina.  
"Oh..."  
"I just don't know, I'll find the money, somehow."  
"Oh. Good."  
  
"And that ring that you liked?"  
"Yeah?" She asked eagerly.  
  
"Well..." He dug his hand into his pocket. His eyes widened.  
"Hold on." He stood, and walked out of the office.  
He was First class SOLDIER. He was promoted last week after he successfully fought a dragon that was attacking Costa del Sol. (It was his favorite mission thus far. He stayed there another week after defeating the monster to make sure everything was, 'ok.')   
On the weekends, he works at the business district of Shin-Ra's SOLDIER facility, doing paper work and filing. It earns him extra cash.  
Extra cash to buy things like a golden diamond ring that he accidentally misplaced.  
Katrina waited in his office, and twirled in the chair thinking of wedding bells.  
He felt like a fool for misplacing it.  
  
He checked all the pockets in his jacket and in his pants.   
"Shi-shoot. God..." He cursed as he ravaged the next door office room. Nothing, no little black velvet box. Just papers.  
"Oh-my-Go-" He dug his little fingertips into his shirt pocket.  
There it was, without it's box.  
He put it in an important place so he wouldn't forget. His shirt pocket. Moron.  
"Phhhew. God. If I had lost you-" He said to the ring as he walked back into his office.   
Katrina looked up and smiled. She felt herself blush.  
He bent down on one knee, and looked at her into her big, brown eyes.  
  
"Katrina." He said as he slipped the ring into her hands and clasped her finger.  
"This isn't exactly the setting that I imagined, but, I can't wait, I, uhm. Uh..."  
She waited.   
This was the moment of her life.  
"Oh, Seph," She broke when she couldn't wait any more, and the words were not coming to him.  
"I love you." She wiped a tear off of her freckled face, and put her arms around his neck.  
"Marry me." He stated. It wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact.  
  
And they kissed in that little business office on the SOLDIER campus.  
  
He choose to stay in SOLDIER a little longer, and work his way up to general. He decided that fighting and soldiering was his calling, and he was ready to make it a career, and work his way up to the top.   
What else was there to life?  
He took his Mako injections.  
He wanted to get married, like a respectable man, have a few kids, and be a dedicated top class SOLDIER.  
Shin-Ra paid top class SOLDIERS very, very well.  
  
Katrina went back to Mideel. Her father wasn't doing well.   
Sephiroth only got to see his fiancé when he was stationed out there. Or, when he traveled on the weekends and took the time off of work.  
It didn't matter, he said. She was too important to him.  
  
  
  
  
Then, an unexpected mission came.  
He, Zack, Marty, and two others were to go to Midgar.  
There was a riot in sector 7.   
The under privileged were holding a rally.  
"Poor against the wealthy"  
"We deserve better!"  
"Under plate, under class!"  
"Uppers [upper plate people] vs Lowers!"  
  
It was a riot of class. This wasn't the first time. Second class citizens fighting against the wealthy and the Shin-Ra cooperation. A band of first class SOLDIERS and a smattering of others were sent out to control the crowds and to disband the leaders.   
  
"You know, makes me sad. I hate missions like this." Zack said as they sat in the back of the truck as they drove to Midgar from the SOLDIER's camp.  
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Marty added as he smoothed down his short, light red hair. "I feel sorry for the poor people. Them rallying is sort of understandable. I mean, we DO take a lot from them..."  
"WE don't take anything. WE are SOLDIERS WE fight for them. Shin-Ra is to-" Sephiroth started.  
"Sshh..." Zack hissed. He always worried when someone said something slandering about Shin-Ra. He have seen others been demoted for it.  
"No one's here to hear you." Marty snapped and rolled his eyes.  
"Shin-Ra sucks. Admit it. Everyone knows it. It's a corporation that acts like world wide government. Fuck. There IS no government, and UN is the weakest damn rebellion that I've ever seen!"  
"Yeah. You guys talkin' about government?" A blonde haired blue eyed ordinary soldier butted in. He was sent along with the three First Class SOLDIERS to gain experience.  
"Yeah." Zack said.  
"Name's Cloud." Said the blonde soldier.  
"I'm Sephiroth, that's Marty and Zack." Sephiroth offered his gloved hand. They shook, and smiled to each other politely.  
They were silent for a moment.  
"What was I sayin'? Oh yeah, Shin-Ra. We know it's suckin' the life out of the planet, yet we work for it?" Zack continued.  
Sephiroth was starting to feel uneasy; he was planning on having a career out of SOLDIER- out of working for Shin-Ra.  
"Well, they- they mean well- the Industrial Revolution wouldn't have started without the formation of the Shin-Ra Cooperation. FACT, they ARE Industry, they Are the Industrial Revolution... Damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of thing. The civilized world needs Shin-Ra. Unless there is a strong formation of independent industry, you can't dis-"  
"I was never good at economics." Cloud yawned, interrupting Sephiroth's comment.  
"Yeah, mean either." Added Marty as he coiled a lock of his curly red hair around his finger, then let it spring back to place.  
"See, those two- those guys are SMART, no wonder they are first class, Cloud. They are just- SMART. Me, I don't know how I passed the written test to first class. I'm just lucky."  
"Yeah! I don't know either, MYSTERY! Cheater." Zack snapped sarcastically with a grin.  
Sephiroth looked bemused and quiet. He said nothing and just smiled to himself.  
"I didn't CHEAT! I was lucky." Marty said.  
"He is lucky. I've seen him in battle. He's about to get fucked in the ass, then, something happens and he lives. Like, a bolt of lighting comes out of a storm cloud and saves his sorry ass. Remember that, Marty?" Sephiroth asked and laughed.  
"Yeah. I'm just lucky as hell!" He smirked, then hit Zack on the shoulder, "'Cept, not as lucky as Zack, here, Zack, hit up Aeris lately?"  
"What do you mean?" Zack asked as he glanced at Cloud.  
"Fucked her lately?" Marty chuckled.  
"No, man, broke up with her, remember? Girl named, Tifa, now, dating her."  
"Oh?" Martin asked. Sephiroth looked away.  
"HUGE tits! HUGE!"  
  
The driver of the truck was a Indian from Cosmo Canyon. He spoke little English. He was near silent the whole way, except when they neared the huge megalopolis of a city.   
"Oh, god of thunder and god of mighty, Look!"  
The back of the truck went silent as they all turned their heads to look out the dirty window.  
Looming towers hovered and bombarded the dark sky, bright beams of light shot passed them. Helicopters busied the air. Traffic slowed them down.  
The atmosphere was hazy and greenish.  
The sense of the city was magical and alien.  
Lights and garbage littered everything.   
Midgar was like no place in the world; it is like a foreign planet.  
No matter how many times he had been there, it still continued to leave Sephiroth speechless.  
  
"Maybe it would be faster if we walked." One of the soldiers that accompanied Cloud was a woman, and she too, was nearly silent the whole way. She took off her hat and mask.  
There were five soldiers in the truck, all together.  
Zack and Sephiroth glanced at her.  
Her skin was as black as midnight, her eyes as dark as water over a stone.  
She looked back at them, and licked her thick lips.  
Sephiroth swallowed, and sighed.  
He thought of Katrina.  
  
"All-right, looks like were near there. Other trucks are unloading." Zack said as he caught a glimpse of another Shin-Ra truck. "Guess we can get out and walk to sector 7. This traffic getting into Midgar is hopeless."  
Everyone agreed, and they piled out of the truck.  
  
Near wordlessly, they walked into the gates of Midgar, meeting up with a few other soldiers. They followed the noise into sector 7.  
  
"First mission?" Sephiroth asked Cloud.  
"No, but first really important one." He answered as he fastened on his mask.   
Sephiroth smiled.  
  
  
"Don't be nervous. I am always with you." 


	13. Part Nu

From the author of  
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Part Nu  
Chassidut  
  
http://www.inner.org/ (Site to Jewish esoteric archives- more information on Jewish Kabbalahlistic (the true Sefirot) archives and beliefs.)   
  
  
  
  
The five soldiers followed knots and handfuls of other scattered SOLDIERS into Midgar, where, they followed the sounds of angry crowds.  
"EQUALITY!" Many of them shouted.   
Individual people pushed passed the soldiers- as they headed for the rage filled rally.  
Marty pushed one man back, nearly shoving him to the ground.  
"Martin. Don't. Don't push, we are here for the crowd. Not just for one guy-" Sephiroth said grimly. He was certainly not looking forward to this mission- people, in numbers, are easily violent- and deadly.  
  
Like sheep with guns.  
  
They knew that, because they were from Shin-Ra- the spark of this rally, that they would be easy targets.  
  
"Hey..." The dark woman soldier tapped Sephiroth on the shoulder.  
"What's your name?" She asked shyly.  
"Sephiroth." He replied with a slow, insincere smile.  
"I'm Shenequa."  
"Why the introductions? You didn't talk the whole time in the truck." He slowly raised his voice as they neared the heavy crowds.  
"Because-" She said, "You maybe the last guy I talk to- if this gets really bad. Tell Dominic that I love him- if you see him." She raised her face as she looked at him, flashed a thin smile, and took out her riot gear- a giant shield and a baton.  
Sephiroth laughed- it seemed the only sensible thing to do. He too, took out his riot gear, and they formed a line around the cesspool of the angry.  
  
Some civilians carried torches- as if they were in a medieval village, others carried guns and fired them into the air.  
All were loud, all were chaotic, and all gathered around a tiny makeshift stage, where several men with megaphones were egging on the noise.  
There must have been several hundred, perhaps a thousand people there in sector 7.  
There were only about fifty riot SOLDIERS there.  
When they arrived, and strapped on their gear, a cluster of thirty people began fighting the soldiers.  
"Shin-Ra basterds! You're the reason why were living in shit!"  
"How can you work for them?!"  
  
Sephiroth didn't reply, to them he was a faceless, inhuman thing. He just tried to humanely keep them subdued. Cloud nearly let off a tear gas bomb to disperse a particularly violent group of people.  
  
Shenequa found a little girl who was nearly crushed as thirteen people rushed, and began fighting each other. She took the girl to safety.  
One man was nearly beaten to death.  
  
The air was getting hazy in the crowd; someone let off some sort of bomb, it was hard to tell.  
One of the men on the stage with a megaphone caught sight of Sephiroth.  
"SHIN-RA asshole! Get the fuck over here, FIGHT ME, FIGHT ME! People in Corel are piss-ass-poor because of assholes like you!"  
Sephiroth looked up at the man on stage who was addressing him.  
He was middle aged, in torn overalls, and a gray sweater.  
His sleeves were rolled up, and on his tanned, hairy, arm, was the number tattooed: 12.  
  
"Sir, get down, and LEAVE this place!!" It was the only thing he could think of- he was required to give a warning before using force- if possible.  
  
"COCKSUCKER!" The man with the megaphone taunted; then he pulled a piece of red materia from his pocket.  
Sephiroth immediately recognized the glimpse of the cold red orb; he knew what it was, but where would a civilian get such a thing and know how to use it?  
  
"SIR! Put the materia down!" Sephiroth unlatched his 1st class SOLDIER standard sword from his back. Upon the sword he equipped several pieces of leveled green materia.  
He wasn't about to be made a fool of.  
He was a SOLDIER, and proud of it.  
He could handle this situation, and act appropriately, according to SOLDIER standard procedure.  
  
"SIR! I've given you plenty of warning!"  
"Assfucker. You piece of shit, SHIN-RA." The man threw the megaphone aside, and began to summon with the red materia.  
"You think you guys can fuck with the people of Midgar, you think that we will live in this shit-hole peacefully, you think you can fuck us in the ass and get away with it! FUCK YOU!"  
  
A woman was accidentally pushed into Sephiroth side, under the hazy chaos of the violent crowd. He caught a glimpse of Shenequa being beaten by three men taking her on.  
They were outnumbered.  
The man on stage was using a summoning spell.  
Sephiroth felt himself becoming panicked.  
Blood rushed to his face.  
His legs tingled.  
  
Then, adrenaline pumped through his Mako-filled veins; his Jenova cells responded.  
  
Sephiroth lifted his sword. He mastered Fire, Ultima, All, and Destruct.  
He lept up onto the platform stage, and kicked the man with the materia in the knee.  
The man was nearly complete casting it, but the red orb fell from his fingers as his legs buckled. The man screamed and groaned in pain, grabbing his knee. He didn't see Sephiroth coming.  
  
Sephiroth nabbed the materia, and shoved it into his pocket.  
Then, without thinking, acting on pure instinct, he casted freeze on the crowd- using his all materia.  
  
He someone's fist was coming at his face the moment he casted it. It froze in mid air; inches from his nose.  
  
It was eerie. The crowd was suddenly silent.  
  
And the misty haze lingered, spreading her talons around the muddy ground.  
  
Sephiroth looked around, and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. Everything was suddenly so cold- making the haze heavier and rise.  
  
"SEPHIROTH!"  
He pushed his long grey hair behind his shoulder. Someone was calling his name from a distance. He slid off the stage, and headed for the voice, wading in-between the frozen statuesque people.  
  
"Seph, what- what did you DO?" Zack pushed his sleeve under his bleeding nose. His lips were swollen, and his black hair was matted. He slowly limped towards Sephiroth.  
  
"Casted freeze. Where's Marty?"  
"Got the snot beat out of him over there, you think I'm bad? Dude, he's like, nearly in a coma. I was worried about that black girl in the truck with us, where is she?"  
"Shenequa. Her name's Shenequa. She's over there, I was about to get her. Where's-what's-his-name-?"  
"Cloud? I don't know where he is."  
  
"I'll get Shenequa- last I saw her she was in trouble. You find Cloud."  
"How long will this last?" Zack asked as he nursed his bruised eye.  
"Long enough." Sephiroth said as he walked away into the mist.  
Zack squinted to see his larger-than-life figure slowly fade into the distance, with his sweat covered long hair wave back like a long banner.  
Zack shook his head, and stumbled off to look for Cloud.  
  
It took only moments for Sephiroth to find Shenequa; she a near mangled heap of flesh and uniform under three men; frozen in stance under the act of beating her with bloody, sharp, fists.  
  
Sephiroth pushed them over. They fell, and the ice upon their eyelashes cracked.  
He picked up Shenequa, the blood on her face was black and frozen. Her eye seemed swollen. Her teeth were covered in blood.  
She struggled to blink when Sephiroth lifted her head.  
"Fuckin'... people. Fuckin'... assholes. I fought them. I fought them good. Then, two more came, and they wouldn't STOP... I think I killed that guy over there, Seph..."  
He gently hoisted her onto his shoulders.  
"They will be awake soon. So, shh... I'm takin' you back to the truck. We are leaving."  
"Oh, good. I think my eye hurts. God will forgive me. He will forgive all of us." She said slowly.  
  
Sephiroth carried her, stepping over some cold and crumpled bodies. They were not dead; just out cold. Some were waking up- and looking for their friends. Others just walked off.  
They stopped the rally.  
Stopped it cold.  
  
"Seph! Was that you who casted 'freeze?'"  
"Marty! Zack said you were like, almost dead!" Seph grinned as he stepped over a large woman laying in the grass.  
  
"No, man, that was some other red-headed guy. I got lucky! A tower of garbage fell on this guy who was threatening to kill me."  
"Your-kidding..." Sephiroth re-adjusted Shenequa on his shoulders.  
"No man. Luck. I'm PURE luck. Zack's over there, hoss. He's getting Cloud."  
  
  
Cloud was no better off than Marty; a few scratches, a swollen eye. When their unit was safely gathered, they headed back for their truck to go home.  
On their way out, Sephiroth stepped over a boy, no older than seventeen, who had a seven tattooed on his arm.  
"Smooth one, man. Casting 'freeze.'"  
  
"What's with those tattoos? I saw a few guys with numbers on their arms."  
"So? Sometimes numbers mean shit to people, you know."  
"Your going to be a HERO, man! They are going to write ARTICALS about you single handedly stopping a raging CROWD, man. You're a going to be a LEDGENDARY swords-man HERO! People will look UP to ya, man!"  
  
"Shut the fuck up, Marty." 


	14. Part Xi

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Xi  
Hei  
  
But it was true; he did become famous, as Marty said he would.  
  
He became nearly legendary- the Media exploded his character.  
"Young. Handsome. And the greatest swordsman since Alexander."- The newspaper headlines would say.  
"Single-handedly stopped a rioting, violent crowd!"  
  
He was an icon- he was a celebrity.  
  
They even developed scandals on him.  
  
But they easily fizzled out. He was everyone's hero.  
  
Just like he wanted to be.  
  
He couldn't have a moment's rest without a camera in his face, without a flash of a photograph.  
He was on talk shows.  
  
"Katrina. How are you? I can't talk long, you know. You know how it is, I wouldn't be surprised if someone is listening in on us-"  
"Shh.. Seph, your paranoid, just talk."  
"You would be too if people followed you around for your freakin' signature."  
"Seph, I'm PROUD of you. You're a hero-"  
"Don't YOU start, Katrina. I- I MISS you, love. I'm goin' down to Mideel soon. I can't believe how this nearly exploded over night- my career. I feel like a rock star."  
"Your now famous, Sephiroth."  
"I- I know. But, listen, love, they want to make me GENERAL- since this incident. Can you believe that?"  
"I'm proud of you, sweetie. So, when are you coming down?"  
"Soon. How's your dad? Is he ok?"  
"He's... Well, I'm not going to say that he's ok. Because he's not."  
"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie. I got to go, love you, see you soon."  
"Bye, Seph, love you too."  
  
  
The attention that Sephiroth got on a daily basis was dragging on him. Even his closest friends saw him differently. They wouldn't speak to him like they used to.  
He couldn't go into 'The Phantom Wall Room,' without being bombarded.  
He missed Katrina.  
He wound up feeling more isolated than ever before.  
  
He would lock his office, and open up a jigsaw puzzle, and not stop until three in the morning when photographers would be long in bed- or lost interest for the evening.  
  
One TV show said that Sephiroth had been sleeping with Barbie Spors- the latest blonde-busty pop star.  
(He thought THAT was funny- frankly- Katrina did too.)  
  
But it bothered him. No body knew the real him- and those that did- began to only see the Sephiroth icon, and not the real him anymore.  
He felt completely, totally, alone.  
  
He wondered when the fame would fade away, as it usually does.   
He wound up in his office for hours, alone with his head, and would think about things that he thought he long forgot.  
  
His mother... Hojo... Jenova...  
And those weird number tattoos- for some reason- bothered him greatly.  
  
He was tempted to call Hojo's laboratory on a number of occasions, just to have someone to talk to.  
  
As time went on, and he spent more and more time alone after serving his general duty to SOLDIER, he went back to Hojo's laboratory, and would demand access to files.  
He would try to find anything that had the word, 'Jenova' on it.  
Much of it was confidential.  
  
"Why? WHY do you want access to my files?!" Hojo demanded. His hair was graying. He looked much older since Sephiroth last saw him. Hojo hadn't changed at all; he wasn't even glad to see him.  
  
Sephiroth thought he saw a large, orange beast in Hojo's lab. It had a flame for a tail. The number '13' was tattooed in Roman numerals. He made a mental note of it.   
  
"I just want to know why my mother's NAME is on all these project files! HUH!? Tell me that, HOJO! Why?!"  
"Get out of my lab, boy. You STILL are a boy to me, general or not!"  
  
Sometimes that would be the end of the argument; agitated, Sephiroth would leave.  
  
Sephiroth found himself, on a dark morning, sleepless, hopeless, lonely, and falling into mental despair.  
  
He took a weeks leave, and went to Mideel. 


	15. Part Omikron

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Omikron  
Dalet  
  
"Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost." (Sandman, volume 10, Neil Gaiman.)  
  
I've never been to Mideel. It's one of those places that I'd like to go to, though.  
It's remote, it's small, and from what I hear, everyone is really weird. An eccentric weird. A me kind of weird.  
  
I've learned to live with weird, if this experience has taught me anything.  
  
I've been taking everything day by day. It's the only way.  
I've still been living with my friend, Jon. Though, I'm sure that I've worn out my welcome.  
I haven't gone to work in... I'm not sure how long. I know that I don't have a job anymore. I'm sure that I've been evicted from my apartment; I haven't paid rent in so long.  
  
Whatever.  
  
I've been compiling the Sephiroth tapes, and labeling them. There are over 13 of them, both sides filled.   
I've been listening to them over and over during the days, and then typing them out in script form and been adding in my notes; thus what you are reading now, so not only is it the interview, but you get the joy of my comments.  
  
So at least that whatever is left of me, because I don't know what is going to happen, there is a record. Boy, am I a true journalist.  
  
I wonder where Jon is now.  
  
Late in the afternoon, when he comes home, we watch TV together in silence; it has become a ritual.   
Sometimes we smoke the fun tobacco together, but mostly, we don't talk.  
He looks at me weird sometimes.  
  
It has become an obsession, no, not an obsession- but a lifestyle- every night when Sephiroth comes through that hallway and talks, and talks, until the sun peaks, then I sleep.  
  
I don't think I fear anymore, only accept. I realize that this is what I think that I am supposed to do with my life.   
  
Except last night- get this- when Sephiroth finished talking- he again asked me to follow him down the hallway.  
  
I didn't really say no, but I didn't really say yes.  
  
He said in due time, but the story has to end somehow.  
  
That means follow him through the hallway.  
  
He told me to tell you to go through the hallway.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Fuck.  
  
  
  
What the hell is that supposed to mean?  
  
  
  
  
  
Anyway, when he finally left, and when I blinked, and the hallway was gone, I couldn't sleep.  
  
It was sunrise.  
  
  
I took off my shirt, and stood in front of the window in Jon's guest room where I have been sleeping.  
There is a tree underneath the window.  
I looked down.  
There in the tree, was a pair of red, sad eyes, the same ones that I met when I took that walk so many weeks, maybe months, ago.  
  
They were bright eyes, and with the bright eyes was a shadowy figure, that seemed to sway with the tree leaves and shadows.  
I couldn't make out it's form, but it certainly was in the tree.  
I believe that I saw it, I may be insane.  
I believe a lot of things now.  
  
"You... you STILL have been speaking to him, haven't you?" The red eyes spoke to me in a distant, inhuman, despairing voice that carried on the wind and into my ears.  
  
I said, so, what is it to you if I have still been talking to him?  
  
"He is no angel." Said the disconsolate voice.  
  
I argued, I said that he certainly was an angel.  
  
"No, no, he is a devil; a wicked angel, that is why you must stop speaking to him. Do not listen to his story. If you hear all of it, you will follow him down that dark hallway. Then, there is no going back."  
  
I said, you should have heard me, I said, that he may be a devil, he may be a devil that once hung out in the Phantom Wall Room. He may be a Phantom Wall Devil, but that phantom hallway has nothing to do with me, I wouldn't follow him- I knew if I did- that would be the end of me- perhaps the end of you, too.  
  
"I know him, and I have always known him... I knew him since he was a child. I knew his mother... his beautiful mother, Lucrecia."  
  
I asked the red eyes the one question that I have always been wondering, then. How did he become an angel? He once seemed human. The man that he talks of- every night- the man that he was- seems like a different being that what he is now.  
  
The red eyes closed, then, and it almost seemed that he shook his head.  
  
"The hallway. He went down the hallway. He was born. He was born again. Sephiroth, and the one winged angel, are not the same- but they are. There is something deep in his being- his cells- his very essence- that was never human... and I know... what.  
That.  
Is.  
Like."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Then, the red eyes vanished into the pale morning. 


	16. Part Pi

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Pi  
Gimmel  
  
  
"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours. I said that." ('Talking World War 3 Blues', off the album 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.' Bob Dylan)  
  
Sephiroth turned, and looked around the office. He had everything packed that he was going to bring with him to Mideel. Then, he looked at Masamune.  
Should he take that with him?  
Katrina asked if it was done.  
It was.  
He didn't want anyone to steal it...  
But he would have no use for such a weapon there.  
No one else can handle it.  
He contracted it especially, exactly, for himself.  
  
May as well take it.  
  
He walked over, locked the long black case, and added it to his small amount of luggage.  
  
There was a small, weak knock at the door.  
Sephiroth sighed, slipped on his long black cloak, and answered it.  
"Sir. Ready to leave, sir?"  
"Yes, yes, at ease, Art. I'm ready."   
"You look a might tiered, sir." Art, Third class SOLDIER, said slowly.  
"Your perceptive. You will go far."  
  
Art was a young man that Sephiroth saw much potential in. He was intelligent- in both street and book smarts- slightly distains authority, (in fact, his file is thick with reprimands and pink slips)   
Quickly, Art licked his lips and pushed up his silver-wire-rimmed glasses.  
"Why are you going to Mideel, Seph?" That was another thing. Art tended to be informal to his elders. Sephiroth actually felt more comfortable like that.  
Art didn't look at him like an idol, or a rock star.  
"Girlfriend. Katrina. Need to get away. Press. Just. Sometimes... doesn't stop."  
"Ah. Mind if I get your stuff?"  
"No. Go ahead. Say, Art?"  
"Yeah, Seph?" Art turned as he picked up the long black case.  
"Uh, just, careful with that case... will ya?"  
"Sure." Art replied as he hoisted Sephiroth's bag onto his thin shoulder.  
  
They walked down the office hall in silence for a while.  
"Are you... staying?" Sephiroth asked as they walked outside onto the helicopter landing pad.  
  
"In Mideel?"  
"Yeah..."  
"I don't know, maybe. Why?"  
"I would've granted you permission to be posted there for a week if you wanted. Under my authority, of course."  
"I don't know. I got no reason to be there, you know, Seph."  
"You want a week off is what I'm asking."  
Art paused, and looked uncomfortable, then, let his grin split his face.  
"What's the catch? You commin' onto me, Sephy?" Art laughed lightly.  
  
Sephiroth's expression remained like a gravestone.  
  
Art's smile quickly faded.  
  
"Sure. Fine. What the hell. Sure. Sign me up, I'll go. What do I have to loose?"  
"Good."  
The chopper started, and the wind started to pick up. Sephiroth's hair danced like loose spider web threads splitting the rapidly moving shadows on the concrete landing pad.  
The wind was being sliced as they entered in the small chopper.  
  
When they flew with the pulsating noise, Art shuttered, and questioned what was going on in Sephiroth's mind.  
He was so difference since the incident at Midgar.  
It always seemed that he was preoccupied. He was distant, and never had as much fun as he used to.  
Maybe it was understandable.  
I mean, with all the media attention he has been getting with every move.  
Even walking to the helicopter, there was photographers here and there.  
  
Art sighed, pushed up his glasses, and ran his fingers through his short, black, spiked, hair.  
He took out his notebook, and began righting a piece of non-fiction. He often wrote prose about events in his life; riding in a helicopter going across the ocean with the legendary Sephiroth was definitely something to write about.  
He also wrote political poetry that he read aloud to other soldiers.  
He was full of antics, and would get applause.   
Rebel rouser.  
Muck raker.  
Art sighed. Sephiroth was staring out the side of the chopper.  
"Hey." Art said as he closed the notebook. His voice was barely audible over the helicopter noise.  
"Hey! Seph!"  
Sephiroth turned.  
  
His eyes were narrow, and very, very green. Art paused.  
"You ok, there, Seph, uh, I mean, general?"  
He didn't reply, only stared at Art.  
"Uh..."  
His stare was cold and penetrating.  
  
"Uh. Nice view, ain't it?"  
  
Another long, uncomfortable, intimidating, pause.  
  
Then, Sephiroth nodded, and folded his arms across his chest.  
Art thought he smiled, but there was no humor in those lips.  
He wished that he didn't agree to go.  
  
"Yes. Those mountains? Look." Sephiroth said pointing down.  
Art looked down. He suddenly had a feeling that Sephiroth was right behind him, and was going to push him out of the helicopter, and plunge down, down, down to a rocky, snowy death. Like he was going to be nothing but a red splotch against the wide Earth and be a forgotten nothing.  
But when Art glanced over at Sephiroth after having looked down, Sephiroth was looking out the side of the chopper, strapped in with a seatbelt, and silent.  
  
Art sighed once more, crossed his legs, and decided to think nothing more of it.  
He leaned back into the leather, cold seats, and kept his mind blank the rest of the way.  
  
They landed a little less then a mile away from the small town. Art helped Sephiroth with his bags; he carried them into town for him.   
When they reached town, Sephiroth gave him more than enough money for the week for food, clothes, and a room to rent.  
Art thanked him.  
  
"I'll be with Katrina if you need me. Her home is that little wooden house near the behind the hospital a bit of ways back. I'll see you in a week, if not sooner, Art."  
  
Art blinked, looked around, saw a black haired girl in a blue dress near the item store, and smiled. 


	17. Part Rho

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Rho  
Biet  
  
  
It's a Sunday afternoon. It's my favorite time in the week. There is something comfortable, safe, and lazy about Sunday afternoons.  
I know it is a Sunday, because I asked Jon, and he told me to look at the calendar; he X's off the days as they pass.  
It's the month of Rho.   
It's the 12th day.  
I think it's been like, two- three months since I've been to my apartment. Shit. Time flies, doesn't it?  
It's been a half a year since I've gone to work.   
I didn't know that time has been THAT displaced with me since this Sephiroth thing began.  
  
He keeps telling me to follow him into that hallway.  
I never go.  
  
I think that if I went, that would be the end.  
It's the unknown, you know?  
Maybe it wouldn't be the end if I went.  
It's the fact that I DON'T KNOW that bothers me. That's why I don't go.  
The hallway itself is alive... The darkness in it shifts.  
It breathes.  
It leaves.  
  
Then it comes back.  
  
  
Those red eyes... those red eyes that I have met twice- and the sad, sad voice that follows. The red eyes knows Sephiroth, and Lucrecia... you know who that could be?  
Boy. That's a no brainer.  
What-the-fuck-was-his-name...  
  
I have the article saved somewhere, when Cloud and his buddies saved the world from the meter, five and a half years ago... It was in the papers everywhere.  
One of the heroes disappeared somewhere, no one's heard from him.  
His name was like, I don't know, Lazlo, something weird.  
Vincent.   
That was it.  
Valentine. That has to be him, come to think of it.  
Those red eyes.  
Valentine knows that Sephiroth has been coming to visit me, does he?  
I wonder how he knows.  
I better get off the sofa.  
  
I rolled off the sofa, and put on a shirt. The wooden floor boards are cold against my bare feet. They bit me as I walked.  
  
I went through my Sephiroth tapes, and my box of shit that I never unpacked. I've been living with my buddy, Jon, for months now, and I haven't hardly unpacked.  
In a small leather bound photo album, I found the worn article about Cloud and his friends saving the world.  
They were on the front page of every paper.  
There has been follow-up articles- since.  
  
They are all folk heroes. Only one of them have there been hardly any press at all.  
He was known as a recluse, an oddity, and a mysterious, sexy-single.  
  
But no one knows where he is, now-a-days.  
  
Tifa returned to her hometown, Cloud bought a villa in Costa del Sol, Cid went back to rocket town, Red13 also returned to his home in Cosmo Canyon, Yuffie went at first to her home in Wutai- but later left to hunt for materia, Vincent was said to have been seen in the old Shin-Ra mansion- (but no one knew for sure. The man who was said to have seen him said only that he saw, 'a creature with red eyes and a claw.' The man was drunk at the time.) Barret retired with his little girl in Kalm...  
  
Kalm, really? I thought... Maybe I could find him and ask him if he knew anything about a man with red eyes. I swear, those eyes... It has to be Valentine warning me about Sephiroth.  
  
What is it his business, anyway?   
  
The article leaves Valentine unaccounted for.  
  
He is out there, somewhere.  
  
Come and find me, mother fucker, and warn me again about how I shouldn't be talking with the dead general.  
  
I put the articals away. I fondled with the idea for a moment about going out to find one of these heroes. Once Sephiroth is finished with telling me his story, it will make my jurnalism carreer again.  
Yeah. That's why I'm doing it.  
  
I'll show all you mother fuckers how great of a writer I am.  
Fuck you, Vincent Valentine. Keep your crazy monster ass away from me.  
I'll follow Sephiroth down his hallway if I damn well want to.  
  
As I lifted the box, underneith it on the floor was a small scratched symbolic marking.  
It was a small, crude, drawing of a one-winged-angel.  
I licked my finger, and tried to rub it away; but it was of no use, it was deeply etched on the floor.  
  
I uttered to myself... that Jon would kill me if he saw scratches on the hard wood floor.  
  
Then, I paused, and realized that was not normal- how did it get there?   
I sure as hell didn't draw it. It appeared as I lifted up the box.  
  
Oh well.  
Weird shit happens, especilly to me.  
  
I pulled the rug and laid it ontop of the scratch marks.  
  
Then, I stood, and went to the bathroom to piss.  
The warm Sunday air sighed as it sank into my lungs and pressed through my pores.  
  
I thought about my ex-girlfriend again- how similar it was to Sephiroth's Katrina.  
All the shit that went down. How I still missed her. How I still remembered her phone number after so many years.  
I wondered if it still was her phone number, and how too chicken I was to really find out.  
  
Sometimes I pick up the phone with the intent on calling her.  
"...Please hang up, and try again." The voice repeats over and over.   
Then, I hang up- having not dialed a single diget.  
  
Sephiroth and I are so simliar. I wonder if he knows. It scares me.  
He reminds me of me.  
I wonder if I... no...  
  
If I went off the deep end like him... like he did?  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Then, I went back to bed, lying there awake- waiting for the hallway to appear again. 


	18. Part Sigma

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Sigma  
Alef  
  
  
Sephiroth sat quietly. His legs were gnarled together and were becoming stale. His hair was a fluttering disarray of gray tendrils dancing together in the sighing wind.  
He wrapped his arms about his knees, and hugged them tightly.  
And as he sat there, in the warm tropical climate, his thoughts fought a bloody battle inside of his head.  
'Katrina said her father was sick... and now she's caught it. Her father is on his deathbed, what if SHE dies, too? ...And what she said about me... How... how could she say those things... Those doctors aren't doing a damn thing... a DAMN thing... She has symptoms of mako poisoning... Like I don't know the difference between mako poisoning and the flu!? Does she think that I am stupid...? And I am not-not...'  
  
Sephiroth closed his eyes, and fought back bitter, salty tears.  
'I am a general. I shouldn't cry. She didn't mean it... when she said... when she said... When I told her... when I told her that I was beginning to resent... deeply... DEEPLY resent Shin-Ra. Why shouldn't I resent them? I should have a long time ago- for everything that they have done to me. When I was born, Hojo said that my mother, Jenova, died... Who was my father, anyway? And... then SOLDIER- which lead me to become a general, which lead me here, to this cursed existence- this FAME. I can not even SHIT without the media knowing... why I needed to get away. Shin-Ra put a gap between Katrina and I. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be having these troubles between her and I.'  
  
Sephiroth looked up, and wiped his thin eyes, boiled then in watery tears.  
"And she's ill." He whispered out loud to himself as he stood and brushed off the leaves that clung to his coat.  
He pulled the collar up on his jacket so it hugged his jaw.  
"It's Hojo. It's Hojo, isn't it? And it has always BEEN him..." Sephiroth sighed as he spoke out loud to himself. He felt awkward doing it- but no one was around in the desolate forest outside Mideel.  
He needed to get away from Katrina for awhile after the argument.  
"Why won't he let me see the files? Does he know... how much... I'm beginning to resent him? What does he have to hide?!" Sephiroth paused, realizing how stupid he must sound if someone WAS listening. It was a probability, paparazzi may have followed him.  
Who cares?  
He was aloud to talk out loud to himself if he wanted to.  
"I sometimes wish that I could destroy Shin-Ra, like they have destroyed me and my life. I wish... that I wasn't famous, that things could be like they used to. Maybe... maybe I should... you know? What do I have to loose anymore. If I could destroy Shin-Ra, I'd start with you, Hojo. You know that? How many lives have you ruined...? I had a rotton childhood because of you. You treated me like a lab expiriment, but I am a MAN- Hojo. Not a test tube. And I'm more of a man than you will ever be. I became a GENERAL... what did you become... and you weren't... you weren't even proud of me..."  
Sephiroth stopped.  
And sunk down to his knees behind a tree.  
The shadow of the tree casted over him,  
Like a long, long hallway of darkness.  
And Sephiroth couldn't keep himself from weeping,  
Weeping,  
  
Weeping,  
  
Weeping,  
  
Bitterly.  
  
He shook,  
And cried,  
  
Salty  
  
  
Tears.  
  
Down,  
Down, the tears fell,  
  
  
Down. 


	19. Part Tau

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Tau  
Yud  
  
  
"Now is the winter of our discontent... Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;  
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds  
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries." (King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 1. William Shakespeare)  
  
  
  
Sephiroth didn't return to Mideel that night. He spent the night out under the stars- little of it sleeping.   
He talked to himself, and to the stars.  
They listened.  
He sung out loud to himself and to the treetops.  
His thick, tenor voice stuck to the sticky dawn sky.  
He acted like a dramatic thespian as he sang, only to simply amuse himself and wash away his body's angst.  
Singing made him feel better and more at peace with himself.  
He sung to a tune he made up to the words of King Lear.  
He acted them out as he went, theatrically waving his hands in rhythm with his vibrato voice.  
  
"I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,  
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,  
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time  
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up... Why,  
I, in this weak piping time of peace,  
Have no delight to pass away the time,  
unless to spy my shadow in the sun..." (King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 1. William Shakespeare)  
  
  
His spirits started to rise as his song rose to the tips of the forest. He swung around the tree trunks as if in a euphoric stupor.   
He didn't care if anyone or anything was listening.  
He didn't care about anything anymore.  
He let it out in a pleasurable bellowing song. His lungs and pipes shook in the made-up melody.  
He stopped suddenly, and considered how stupid he must have been acting.  
  
He looked up, and saw the golden hues shyly spy upon him through the canopy. He smiled sadly.  
He hadn't slept, ate or even peed in hours.  
He jumped off the tree roots, and let go of the trunk he was swinging on.  
He fell into the leaves and twigs and underbrush with a crunch.  
  
While coiling his pale, shaking fingers behind his back, he slowly began to wander through the forest-- only now- humming quietly.  
As morning approached, the whole forest slowly seemed to be folding into stillness. The nocturnal animals and their noises began to fade away.  
The velvet blues mixed with the golds and pinks of morning time, and the sounds of waking animals blended in with the crispy sounds of his footsteps.  
  
He stopped a moment to rest. He wasn't sure how far he meandered from Mideel.  
He paused. The sound of some sort of crunching lingered.  
Something large...  
  
"SEPH!!??"  
  
It was his name... someone was calling his name.  
Sephiroth didn't feel like responding. He unclasped his fingers, stopped humming, and shoved his hands deep into his trench coat pockets.  
Although the forest was topical- he felt cold.  
As the sun progressed to roll further into the sky- the day would gradually get much hotter.  
  
"Sephiroth! General SEEEEPPPHHH...!? God... where the fuck are you..."  
  
He stopped, and leaned against a huge white tree.  
'Fine,' he thought to himself bitterly- the euphoria or not caring wore it's magic off. 'Come and fucking find me. I don't care.'  
  
Sephiroth was staring at his large feet when Art appeared around the corner of the white tree.  
  
"Jesus. Here you are. We've been looking for you all night. Your girlfriend got worried when you didn't come back after a couple of hours."  
"Well, you found me."   
"Was that you singing? That's how we found you. We heard your voice echoing, and Katrina... uh, look, man. I'm sorry."  
Sephiroth looked up.  
"Sorry about what?" He snapped.  
"When you left, god. Uh, she took a pregnancy test."  
"JESUS! Look, Art, I don't need this now, and I'm pissed at her."  
  
Art paused. He never heard Sephiroth use that sort of language before.   
  
"Ok, look, she just told me that she was getting sick. Ok? I can deal with that, ok? But, she's seriously sick. Ok? And..." Sephiroth stepped out from behind the huge tree.  
"She didn't want to hear about any of MY problems! NO! And... When I tried talking to her, Ok... look..." He sighed, and pressed his hand to his face. "Why didn't she tell me this BEFORE!?" His voice flexed to a flat, annoyed tone.  
  
"Because. She wasn't sure if she was for sure or not. And, look, man- she KNEW that you were going to react this way. She knew you were going to be pissed- and it just adds to all your problems- that's what she said. Exact words. Swear to god. She said it was too much... She didn't want to tell you, 'cuz... she wasn't sure if she was or not... And... and... you weren't going to take it well..."  
  
"...Shut up, Art. Shut up, and stay out of it." Sephiroth turned, and began to walk away.  
Art stood there for a moment, and stared at him. Then, he pushed up his silver glasses and began to trot next to him.  
  
"Sorry man."  
"Sorry?! Sorry-man!? 'sorry' isn't going to make Kat not pregnant. 'Sorry,' isn't going to make Kat not SICK. 'Sorry,' isn't going to save the life of MY NEW CHILD... 'Sorry,' isn't going to save ANYTHING. 'Sorry,' isn't going to make my life any better! Sorry isn't-"  
Art was silent as he walked.  
Sephiroth glanced at him, and his face softened.  
  
"Sorry..." Sephiroth muttered. 


	20. Part Upsilon

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Upsilon  
Tet  
  
Since I lost you I am silence-haunted  
Sounds wave their little wings  
A moment, then in weariness settle  
On the floor that soundless swings  
  
(D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930). Amores. 1916)  
  
  
Together, and in silence, the pair walked home.  
  
It was in reverent ways that they wandered in wordlessness.  
The silence hung like a reserved phantom,  
Flexing its talons into Sephiroth's skin, and winding its tongue around Art.  
A fork split the snaky path,  
Without thinking they choose the latter to trod.  
And they walked that thin line thread.  
  
They went back to Mideel,  
And it was a hot summer mid-day.  
Art left him as they reached her father's house. The flies and other tropical bugs clouded around Art's head as he walked away.  
Sephiroth partially wished that he would stay; he didn't know what to say when she would open the door.  
  
Sephiroth knocked.  
A moment later Katrina answered.  
She was not well.  
And her hand rested upon her abdomen.  
It did not seem that it was swollen.  
  
"Where... were you last night?" She asked. Her house smelt stale.  
"Sorry... I ... went for a walk, and I think I got lost in the forest."  
Sephiroth touched an end to his lengthy locks of hair. His silver hair was matted, oily, and unwashed.  
His face felt icky.  
His feet were locked in sweaty boots.  
Katrina's face was contorted.  
Was she angry?  
  
"Oh. You. Seemed, uhm, listen, the doctors... they called me this morning."  
  
He looked at her.  
Her face was plain, and dropped.  
  
"Dad's dead. And I'm sick."  
  
He said nothing.  
She began to cry.  
After a moment, he put his arm around her.   
"I'm sick. And it's mako poisoning. I thought you should know, because I'm pregnant, too."  
  
"Shh..." He hissed gently, "Shh... I know... I know about that already, sweetie. It's ok...Did they say how you two contracted mako poisoning?"  
"No," she sniffed.  
  
"What's... this?" Sephiroth asked as he took her arm. Had he noticed it before- and not made note of it? How could he not have noticed it...?  
"You have a tattoo?"  
"Huh?" Katrina raised her ruined and red face. Her tears soaked through to his shoulder. She dragged her other arm under her nose.  
"You... never... n-noticed it? I-I've had it since... sniff... I wa-was little. Dad has one... too. I feel so much better... calmer... around you... Sephiroth... my god, my lord, great... Sephiroth..."  
  
"What Katrina! What are you talking about?" Sephiroth let go of her arm. The tattoo on it was simply the number, 10.  
  
As he held her, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and her body fell limp.   
He gently let her body down to the floor.  
Sitting on the coffee table near her was a black cloak.  
He pressed his hand to her chest.  
There was no beating.  
He took her wrist, and checked her pulse.  
Nothing.  
  
"Katrina!?"  
  
He paused. He hated the silence.   
No weak breathing.  
No thumping of a heart...  
No birds outside.  
Dead.  
Dead silence.  
He hated that sound.  
  
"KATRINA, breathe! BREATHE! Bitch! Breathe! Come on!"  
He pressed his mouth to hers.  
He wasn't sure if he was doing this right... He never did it before.  
It was better than nothing.  
He pushed air in, then found her belly button... Moved his hands up a notch, and pushed... One, two, thee...  
"Breathe! Come on!"  
Again...  
Push air in...  
Push.  
One.  
Two.  
Three.  
  
"Come on... a thump... anything, breathe... please... just breathe..."  
Again.  
Nothing.  
No response.  
Flat line...  
Beeeeee..... . . . . p.  
  
"Breathe! Baby, come on, please, do it for me... god. Jesus. Breathe, sweetheart, for our baby... please."  
  
...   
  
  
Silence.  
  
One.  
Two.  
Three.  
  
  
Since I lost you I am silence-haunted  
Sounds wave their little wings  
A moment, then in weariness settle  
On the floor that soundless swings.  
  
  
Oh. No.  
  
  
  
  
  
Oh. God.  
  
  
  
  
No. 


	21. Part Phi

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Phi  
Chet  
  
  
"Only   
There is shadow under this red rock   
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),   
And I will show you something different from either   
Your shadow at morning striding behind you   
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;   
I will show you fear in a handful of dust."  
  
(I. The Burial of the Dead, The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot)  
  
  
It's funny how cold rain can be.  
No, it's not funny, really.  
Not funny at all, actually.  
But.  
Sad.  
It's very sad.  
  
Sigh.  
  
Sad.  
  
A guy can get mighty sad, looking at the cold, cold rain outside.  
  
  
  
The last time that I've been to a funeral, it was for my sister. It was... well, I told you about it. It was many years ago. The house fire.  
Actually, it wasn't THAT long ago, it just seems like it. I hate thinking about it.  
Death is... a fucking hilarious thing. There is no other way you can deal with it unless you forget- or laugh. At least, that's the conclusion that I came to.  
God. When Sephiroth told me about his girlfriend, and what happened to her, I wish that you could have seen his face.  
Tape recorders can't show you how someone looks.  
Maybe if you listen, you can hear it in his voice.  
  
I don't think that words would do justice to the look in his eyes. His eyes were netted in something darker than despair. Something colder than hell. Something sadder than depression. Something more dead than a graveyard.  
  
Maybe that was what did it for him. Maybe when his girlfriend died in his arms, it was the straw that broke the bail. I think that was the start of it, when he began to go off the deep end. I think he wanted to take it out on Hojo and the rest of Shin-Ra. Can't blame the guy, really. But, it's not an excuse, either. I wonder if there is an excuse for someone as pathetic as me.  
  
In my life, I've done enough drugs to kill a small horse. All I ever came to be was a washed up journalist. (Enough with the pity party, I know. I'll shut up now.) But, he had something to live for- he was the famous Sephiroth. Strange story, isn't it? He was famous swordsman, a general, had a beautiful girlfriend, (I'm assuming she was beautiful- at least to him she was.) And then he went stark raving mad and killed hundreds of people by hand. He single handedly destroyed Shin-Ra.  
Jesus, you know what's weirder? I think this was the first time I've heard about it- yesterday- but- his girlfriend was a Sephiroth clone. So was her dad. She died of mako poisoning... she had a black cloak and a tattoo? I wonder if he realized what she was when she died. That's fucked up. No wonder he's crazy.  
  
I thought Jon's ready to kick me out of his house. I thought he was fed up with me not having a job.   
So, I went for a walk, again.  
Cold beads wet, sad rain glazed over the city of Kalm. It was mid afternoon, and the sun was in hiding behinds gray clouds in the center of the sky somewhere. I lost track of what day it was, again.  
  
I wandered around the sunken, blue cobble stone streets- letting thoughts randomly roll around in my brain.  
I was thinking about the article I read a few days ago- saying that Barret Wallace lived with his little girl somewhere here in Kalm.  
Of course, the press wouldn't give out an exact address.  
  
I was thinking of hunting him down to ask a few questions. But, I must have LOOKED like hell. I don't remember the last time I'd shaved.  
  
I thought, briefly, about my cousin, Misty. I hadn't talked to her in over half a year now.  
And Vincent. Vincent Valentine. What business was it of his to come stalking me to tell me to stop interviewing Sephiroth...?  
So what if it was ruining my life? It was my choice to do so.   
So what if I don't have a job or a place to live of my own anymore... I can get it all back, when it's over.  
And it will be over soon, won't it?  
  
All stories have endings.  
It's always happily ever after.  
  
That's how things end.  
  
They die, or live happily ever after.  
  
Katrina died. That didn't lead to Sephiroth's ending, did it...?  
  
I sighed, kicked a stone, and watched it plop into a small puddle.  
Funerals suck.  
  
My sister had a pretty funeral. When she died, that was the start of my dad and me growing apart. We weren't close to begin with, but, that's when the fights started, and that's when I began to keep running away a lot.  
It was an accident, you know, when I burned down the house. I was around twelve or thirteen at the time.  
See, well, I have a lot of time on my hands right now. I'll tell you a little bit about myself, and what happened that night.  
  
Ok, my dad never really cared about me. Like I said before, he was like Hojo. That's why I can really, really relate to Sephiroth and his experiences.  
  
I grew up in Rocket Town. It's kind of quiet, if you have ever been there. My dad had quite an extensive gun collection. I love guns. It's like this power that courses down my blood every time I hold one- but- I never will again.  
When I was younger, my dad taught me how to shoot.   
I had a couple of friends.  
Pete and Kevin.  
It was always us three.  
Pete was an artist. He was like, twelve, and could draw any comic book character perfectly, dynamically. But he was small, and kids picked on him a lot. So, I felt sorry for him. I have this mother hen thing. I wanted to take care of Pete.   
Kevin, Kevin was kind of chunky, and he didn't have any friends either.  
  
They thought my dad's gun collection was cool. We hung out every day after school, and I taught them how to shoot in my backyard. I guess- you know how guy's are- and all guys can vouch for this- but all guys have a pecking order. It's always about who-can-one-up-who. I was like, the alpha male of the group. Those guys would've jumped off a bridge of I told them to. I'm a lot different than what I used to be.  
But, anyway, I was a bad kid, basically. I could've killed someone then, and I would have liked it. Back to the story.  
Well, it was dark out, and Me, Kevin, and Pete were in my basement. My little sister was upstairs watching TV. Pete was supposed to be home at ten. But, for some reason, he didn't go home. Kevin was talking about fires. I remember that. He said that if he could have the chance, he would burn down the school. I said something about shooting. Pete said that wasn't cool. I told him to fuck himself. Kevin then found a box of matches.   
You know? This is the reason why I hate myself. This is the reason why I swear to god I'm just like Sephiroth. I wish I could give my sister back her life. But, at the same time, it was not my fault, really. My dad was a prick, that's why I think that I was a bad kid.  
Well, Kevin was lighting shit on fire- paper, and stuff, and waving it around the air. Pete thought it was funny. I didn't care.  
Some of the paper that he caught on fire fell down to the floor, and lit the carpet.  
I told them to put it out- but- Kevin seemed transfixed. I didn't know that he was like- a pyromaniac. He said something about the fire being beautiful. Pete was laughing a little. The fire kept growing. I started getting pissed, and was looking for something to put it out with- water- a shoe.   
But there was nothing. The fire kept growing.  
It blew up and grew faster than I thought it would. It grew out of control. The whole basement was flooded with flames.  
We ran out of there.  
Above the basement is the living room. That's where my sister was, exactly above.  
By the time me, Pete, and Kevin got upstairs, half the living room was engulfed.  
There was so much smoke, that I couldn't see. I thought about my sister, but the living room was so bad, that there was no way I could have saved both her and me.  
  
Before the fire, I wouldn't have gone to college. After it, I was determined to make it. For both her and me, you know? I haven't touched a gun since then. I don't know what happened to Pete and Kevin.  
I didn't amount to much, though. I loved writing, and I am not as successful as I hoped to be. That's life, though.  
That's the story, too.  
  
Funerals. My sister had a really, really, beautiful funeral. From the sounds of it, Katrina did, too. Makes me sad.  
I was wrong, you know, death isn't funny.  
It's just a part of life.  
Rain... is so cold.  
  
  
  
  
  
*Note from the author, Phoenix Down.  
  
None of the characters in this story are based off of me, or any of my close friends and loved ones. All of them are based off of fragments of me, and fragments of people I know- and don't know.  
The journalist is very important- not only as an element to the story- but because the story that he just told- is not only relevant to the whole Sephiroth tale- but because it is very real.   
There are a ton of kids out there- especially adolescent boys- who can relate to him. Boys that feels so alone- that the only means of flexing their manhood and masculinity is through means of violence. He- the journalist- only grew partially out of it. It's sad, but true, and realistic.  
But the only lesson to be learned about the issue of outcasts in society is that they are there, not forgotten, and often have a tragic ending if they are persistently ignored.   
Funerals suck. 


	22. Part Chi

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Chi  
Zayin  
  
"Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?"  
(Andy Warhol (c. 1928-1987), U.S. pop artist. Quoted in Warhol, "Too Much Work 1980-84," Victor Bokris (1989).)  
  
"Things... sounds... noise. Shit.   
These things keep me up late at night...  
Fear. Spinning, spinning, spinning.  
'Round and... 'round... like a merry go round.  
But it's not so merry.  
It's all crazy sound."   
  
Sephiroth took a deep breath, and shook his fingers loose. They were cramping. He took the sheet of paper with the black ink stains and crumpled it.   
Then, he tossed it to the floor. There were piles of balled paper like it; they were like forgotten snowballs that never melted in the shadowed corner of the dusty gray floor.   
  
He tried expressing his fear in other ways; singing, sparring, solving puzzles- other things he loved. But the fear still sat there in his chest.  
  
He tried writing about how he felt; the anger, confusion, sadness, and the brink line of madness.  
  
He stood, and began to pace. Back and forth. Back and forth.  
  
"I... I can't. I can't. I can't cry. I CAN'T CRY... but... god... I... I... WANT... to... Cry..."  
  
He sat down again.  
He sobbed in his folded arms.  
  
"Katrina. Who. Killed. You? WHY was it MAKO poisoning... you knew that I've been injecting mako my whole life. It never killed me. Why did it kill you? Who killed you?"  
  
"Seph?"   
The door crept open. A small pair of eyes shaded behind silver rimmed glasses poked in the ill lit room.  
The flame on the single white candle on Sephiroth's desk fluttered.  
"Are you ok, Seph? It's like, three am. You woke me up..." Art whispered.  
  
While rubbing his bloodshot eyes, Sephiroth muttered, "Sorry... Art. I... couldn't sleep."  
  
The black haired adolescent walked in quietly, and shut the door behind him.  
"You want to talk about it? It was a... uh, pretty funeral, you know? Both Kat and her dad's."  
  
"Yes. It was." Sephiroth sat back in his chair, lowered his face, and crossed his arms tightly.  
Art paused.  
  
"We... are leaving tomorrow, right? Goin' back?"   
Sephiroth didn't reply. He remained still.  
  
"Uhm... We HAVE to go back, you know, Seph. Gotta move on with your life. Uhm. Your still a general."  
  
"Art. If I tell you something, you wouldn't repeat it would you?"  
  
"Uh, no, I guess not." Art paused, and glanced around the room.  
  
"We are going back. Sure. But. I renounce my loyalties to Shin-Ra. I'll do one more SOLDIER mission for them... But that's it. I don't know how long I can hold it in anymore."  
  
"What do you mean...?"Curiously, his black eyes rose above the rims of his glasses.  
  
"I've been thinking, for a long time now. It all... is leading back to someone. Everything is. It- almost makes sense now."   
It was a strange calmness that froze to Sephiroth's features.  
His eyes were no longer red, but a still clear.   
The shadows on the walls seemed to only slightly flit and flicker across the room, as if afraid of the careful composure on the man's features.  
His countenance radiated an epiphany of understanding something huge.  
  
Sephiroth looked as if he were about to laugh at something demonically ironic.   
"Wh- what makes sense..." Art saw the weird expression writhe in his eyes; the surreal was becoming real. Art didn't understand, and he was afraid at what Sephiroth then could have been capable of.  
  
"Everything. Everything- IS MAKING SENSE!" Sephiroth's booming voice danced and reverberated off of the wooden ceiling.  
  
"Don't you see? It is clear now! My beloved and her father were poisoned by mako energy! That, my friend, is a Shin-Ra product- packaged and refined by our beloved company that which by we are employed! And there is one element in common to these two people that have died..."  
  
"And that is...?"  
  
"Numbers."  
  
"Uh... Seph, are you... uh, ok?"  
  
Sephiroth stood and his shoulders rocked as he madly laughed. He covered his face with his hand as if dramatically shocked by Art's sudden flex of stupidity.  
  
"Ok?.... OK?! Of course I'm, 'OK' I'm perfectly .... FINE! You see, Art... My girlfriend, fiancee, rather, did not die of natural causes. Therefore, she was murdered. There is only one man who could have done this. And as you as my witness... Well, here is the secret, my friend, my boy-"  
  
Art's jaw fell. His eyes budged. He stared at Sephiroth with the look of awe and stupor.   
"Your... Seph, are you ok? Your- uhm, acting strange. I think you may be loosing- it's late. We need some rest. Your... uh, in shock, you know, and just tired. I should go to bed, too, you know? Big day tomorrow- lots of traveling..."  
  
Art stood.  
Sephiroth shoved him down on the bed.  
  
"NO! You don't get it, do you!? No... how... how could you... your just a child, at best, Art, no offence. It's Shin-Ra, Art, SHIN-RA! Evil. Manipulative. They killed her. They are killing people. My life. Her life. IT'S ALL HOJO!"  
  
"Hojo, dude, calm down..." Art struggled to regain himself.  
"He's just the old man at the lab, man."  
  
Sephiroth turned, knocked over a chair, and grabbed his masamune from the floor.   
He unsheathed it from its leather case. It slid out easily, with a hiss.   
  
"DUDE! Put that fucker down, man, before you hurt someone!"  
Sephiroth ignored him, and sliced the chair in half.  
It fell to two perfect, symmetrical pieces.  
  
"No. No..." Sephiroth sighed, and looked at the chair. His long silver hair slid down his front like a slice of metal.  
"No. Art. I'm sorry. We are going back tomorrow. I want to know. I want to know, NOW. I want to know what this all means. It has gone too far... TOO FAR! SHE'S DEAD!! I need to know. I need to know who my mother is. I need to know WHY Katrina was murdered. I need to know the answers to the questions that have been plaguing my LIFE for TOO long. Only one... only one man knows. Only one man knows the answers."  
  
Art trembled. He didn't dare ask.  
Sephiroth picked up the long, heavy black sheath, and replaced his cold blade.  
"Hojo. Art. It is Hojo. It always has been him. He is like... the puppet master."  
  
Sephiroth kicked the two halves of the wooden chair aside, and smiled.  
His smile was like a knife.  
  
Then, without another word, he left.  
  
"Your... your crazy, man. Abso-fucking-lutely loony..." Art whispered after the tall general walked out. Art stood in the empty hotel room in Mideel. He felt overwhelmed, and afraid. He looked at the chair that was expertly chopped in two, and then shuddered. He pushed the two halves with his toe, so the tumbled to their sides.  
"Crazy ass... mother fucker. Better not piss you off, eh?"  
  
It was a hot night, and Art didn't get any sleep at all.  
Sephiroth slept soundly in the room next door.  
  
The crickets and other nightly sounds- went 'round and 'round Art's sleepless and worried head. 


	23. Part Psi

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Psi  
Vav  
  
The following morning, Sephiroth woke refreshed- but there was a new air about him. He seemed off- with a determined and deep disposition about him.  
It was as if whatever he was set out to do, nothing was going to stop him.  
  
Art, sleepless and weak, did not speak to him the whole flight back to the SOLDIER camp.  
When they returned, Art requested to be moved to another platoon. He didn't want anything more to do with general Sephiroth. However, he kept his word in keeping his mouth shut about everything that he told him.  
He was afraid of the consequences if he told someone that Sephiroth had lost his loyalty- and was sure to do something with regards to it.  
  
After Sephiroth unpacked his things, he was told by his superiors that he, Zack, and two private soldiers were to be sent out to the newly built- top secret mako factory in Nibleheim.   
Their mission was also top secret.  
They would be taking a truck there.  
  
Sephiroth understood. And he smiled.  
  
"How was your vacation, Seph? Did you see your girlfriend? How is she?"  
"She's." He stopped, and closed his eyes a moment.  
Zack stared at him.  
"She's fine."  
"Oh." Zack turned, and strapped his sword to his back. He didn't push the subject further. Something was different about Sephiroth. He seemed distant, sad, and frankly, just a little off.  
"So, do you know who the two other soldiers are that are coming with us to Niebleheim, and did you get the details on the mission?"  
"Hm. I think the same kid that came with us to the mission in um, Midgar." Sephiroth replied quietly as he unsheathed his masamune.  
Zack hesitated as he saw Sephiroth's well crafted blade make an appearance.   
They stood in Sephiroth's office, a tight room plastered with abstract papers, models, blue prints, classical CD's, and books. Mountains upon mountains of books towered around his office.   
"Cloud, wasn't it?"  
"What?" Sephiroth barked. He was staring transfixed at his sword.  
The sword seemed to have a malicious grin. It shined like steel and ice.  
"Cloud. I think that was the name of the blonde guy who came with us to Midgar."  
"Oh. Oh. Yes. Isn't Nibleheim his hometown?"  
"I guess so. I don't know. I'm from Gongaga. But I've lived in Nibleheim for a while."  
"Did you?" Sephiroth asked uninterestedly. He turned away, and replaced his sword.  
"Yeah. Nice town. Kind of quiet. The infamous Shin-Ra mansion is there. Some guy owns the place- but let it go the shit. My old girlfriend was telling me about it. She said some rich guy- Valentine Sr. A Turk- or someone owns it. I don't know. They used to do lab experiments in the basement. Said there was a ton of top secret Shin-Ra documents down there. Something about the Jenova project. Say, uh- that wouldn't be why we are going to Nibleheim is it?"  
  
Sephiroth went silent. Zack couldn't read the expression that plagued the general's green eyes. Sephiroth's head fell, and he remained as still as a stone statue- sculpted with long silver hair, and sharp features.  
Zack glanced to the floor.  
He figured that perhaps he said something wrong.  
After a moment of well tuned silence, Zack turned and left.  
Something was wrong with Sephiroth, but he did not know what.  
  
Sephiroth unsheathed his masamune once more. He lifted it above his head.  
On his desk, was a scribbled note he wrote to himself yesterday.  
It read, "Destroy Shin-Ra. Kill Hojo. Jenova, Jenova, Jenova. Mother."  
The note beside the other read: "Do your laundry."  
  
He stared at the note.  
His teeth clenched like a barred wall.  
  
Down came his blade.  
  
He stabbed the note.  
  
The blade protruded from the desk, and stood strait up in the wood like a planted tree.  
It was silent.  
The steel blade sliced into the note, right between the words, "Hojo, and Jenova."  
  
Sephiroth slid to the floor, and shook.  
He didn't stop shaking until it was time to leave.  
  
It was raining hard when they left. Cloud, Zack, Sephiroth, and two others piled onto the flat bed truck. One of the private soldiers took the front to drive in the hideously wet weather.  
No one spoke the first hour they drove.  
"Sure is raining hard." Zack said as he began to feel restless. "Hey, how are you doing?" Zack stood and asked one of the soldiers that sat across from Sephiroth in the back of the truck. The soldier was complaining earlier from not feeling well from motion sickness.  
"I'm alright." The soldier grunted.  
"I wouldn't know, I've never had motion sickness." Zack leaned over the front, and asked the driver, "Everything ok?"  
"Hey. Settle down."  
Zack glanced over at Sephiroth, and returned to his seat.  
"They gave me new Materia, I can't wait to use it."  
"Just like a kid." Sephiroth muttered.  
"You goin' to brief us on this mission?"  
"This isn't a typical mission." Sephiroth replied in a sigh.  
"Good!"  
"Why do you say that?"  
Zack stood and glanced at Cloud-who still was not feeling that entirely well.  
"I joined SOLDIER so I could be like you- but by the time I made 1st class SOLDIER, the war with Wutai was already over. My big hopes of becoming a hero like you ended with the war. That's why I sign up for big missions- to prove myself. So, how do you feel, MISTER Sephiroth?"  
"Don't patronize me, Zack... I thought you wanted a briefing? Our mission is to investigate an old mako reactor. There have been reports of it malfunctioning and producing brutal creatures. First, we dispose of those creatures, then we locate the problem and neutralize it."  
"Brutal creatures? Where?" Zack asked seriously as he sat down beside Cloud.  
"The mako reactor in Nieblheim."  
"Nibelhiem... I've lived there a while."   
"That's where I'm from." Cloud uttered as he folded his arms across his chest.  
"Hmmm... hometown." Sephiroth smiled quietly.  
Just as Sephiroth spoke, the truck jerked underneath the sound of a large thud. Something huge had hit the front of the truck. The driver in the front called out as the truck jerked to a stop, "Sirs! Something strange has crashed into our truck!"  
"That- would be our monster." Sephiroth stood slowly as he hoisted himself up. He took his sword, and he and Zack went outside to fight.  
It took only a moment for them to take down the beast. It was half wounded on its side from being hit by the truck- and it could not see well underneath the gray wall of falling rain.  
Then, they continued on their journey to Nibelhiem.  
  
Nibelhiem was unusually quiet that day. There was not a soul on the street, nor a bird on wing in the air.  
Cloud, Zack, Sephiroth, and one other soldier by the name of Karl, walked to the gate of town, and stopped.  
"So, how does it feel? This is your first time back to your hometown in a long time, right? So- how does it feel? I wouldn't know, because I don't have a hometown." Sephiroth turned around and asked Cloud.  
"Uh... how about your parents?" Cloud asked as he fastened on his uniform hat.   
"My mother is Jenova. She died after she gave birth to me. My father-" Sephiroth cut himself off and began to chuckle and shake his head. "What does it matter?" He continued. "All right, let's go."   
Sephiroth walked on ahead.  
Zack turned to Cloud as they walked, and Cloud whispered to him, "It's so boring, being on watch."  
"Just sit tight and do your job, right? I'll come and talk to you once in a while, man. Just stick with it." Zack said in a sigh.  
  
Sephiroth stopped once again, and covered his mouth with his hand. "Uhg. The mako smells pretty bad here."  
  
The four of them headed to the desolate in. Before they entered, Sephiroth told them in a rather cool and official voice,  
"We leave for the reactor at dawn. Make sure you get to sleep early. All we need is a lookout, so you others- get some rest. Oh." Sephiroth stopped as he reached the threshold of the inn, and turned to the others, "That's right. You may visit your family and friends."  
  
Then, Sephiroth vanished into the inn.   
Zack took a deep breath the moment the general disappeared.  
"Man. I'm so nervous." Cloud whispered. Zack turned to him with an odd expression in his eyes.  
"How come?"  
"Look, you never know when a monster is going to show up, right?" As Cloud spoke, he glanced up into the window of the inn where Sephiroth stood staring out.  
  
Zack shook his head, and began to wander the town.   
Zack visited his mothers.  
He also visited Tifa's house- with a hope and a prayer that she would be home- she was not. He wanted to have words with that ex-girlfriend- this being her hometown as well.   
He played on her piano, and looked through her drawers. No one was home.  
  
  
As Zack wandered aimlessly in the town, he suddenly felt lonely. He wanted to return to HIS hometown, Gongaga. He wondered when his mother would move back.  
He wandered up near the Shin-Ra mansion, where a man stood leaning against the fence. The man seemed familiar.  
He was staring at the abandoned mansion. Zack approached him, and leaned against the fence.  
Then man glanced over his shoulder at him. He had dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes.  
"Aren't you from Shin-Ra?" The man had a deep, dark voice.  
"Who are you?" Zack asked in a rude snap.  
"Don't you know? I'm Tifa's father."  
"Right, Tifa's father." Zack replied amusedly. He was in a deep and sour mood. He did not want to be here, forced down memory lane.  
"I want you to stay away from my daughter."  
  
Zack walked away without a response.  
  
  
With his hands shoved deep into his pocket, he decided to go back to the inn, and get some rest- like Sephiroth suggested.  
Sephiroth seemed oddly distant since he returned from vacation.  
  
"Hey..."   
Zack looked up. A man with a flashy smile and a camera slung around his neck stood in front of the inn.  
Zack nodded as he reached for the brass handle on the inn door.  
"I heard Sephiroth was coming and I got my camera ready. I want a shot of Sephiroth and a monster."  
"You better get inside. It's dangerous out. Monsters around, you know." Zack replied tiredly.  
"Alright...(bighead)" the photographer with the strange smile muttered. "Hey, (is this guy for real?) So, that's how it is, huh?" You- are you Zack? ... I didn't recognize you at first. You've grown up to be a nice looking lad."  
"Then, take my picture." Zack added dismissively. He wanted to go in and rest.  
"Let's do this, Zack. Let me take a picture of you with Sephiroth tomorrow, eh?"   
  
Zack nodded his head and went inside.  
  
He didn't feel like dealing with Sephiroth's fan club.  
Within the inn, a huge man in a red cape stood chatting with the innkeeper. He looked like a misplaced martial arts master.   
His voice was loud, and rung up the wooden stairway that Zack took to the second level.  
  
Outside the rented room, Sephiroth stood pensively staring out the clouded window.  
Zack approached him hesitantly.  
"What... are you looking at?"  
Sephiroth didn't respond first. It was as if Zack was not there at all.  
"This... scenery. I feel like I know this place."  
"Oh." Zack suddenly felt awkward.  
He backed away, and walked into the rented bedroom.  
Cloud stood in the room with a disgusted, angry scowl on his lips.  
  
"We are short one bed." He grunted hostilely. 


	24. Part Omega

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Omega  
Samech  
  
  
"If there is a transmigration of souls, then I am not yet at the bottom rung.   
My life is a hesitation before birth."  
(Franz Kafka, [1883-1924] Czech novelist, short-story writer, from his journal entry, Jan 24, 1922. The diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910-1923, ed. Max Brod [1948])  
  
  
"We have an early start tomorrow. You should get some sleep, soon."  
"Yeah, lets get some sleep." Zack agreed with a small yawn.  
"I've hired a guide to the mako reactor. I've heard she's young. I hope we can rely on her." Sephiroth said as he slid off his coat.   
Cloud was already fast asleep and snoring; Zack was not looking forward to sharing a bed with him.  
  
The following morning started early. Zack woke up before the others, and got himself ready in the serene silence with the stench of mako in the morning air.  
The sky seemed lumpy and gray.  
He went to a coffee house and ate a bagel and drank black coffee. The others were already outside the Shin-Ra mansion when he finished breakfast.  
Sephiroth didn't greet him- when Zack arrived he simply said,  
"Once the guide gets here, we are heading out."  
  
Zack noticed that standing beside Sephiroth was Tifa's dad- and beside him was the photographer that stopped him the day before. He dare ask what they were doing there. Cloud sighed, and snapped on his uniform hat.  
"Listen to me, Sephiroth, incase something happens-"  
When Tifa's father spoke, Zack felt his cheeks fill with blood.  
"Trust me." Sephiroth grinned like a fox.  
  
Tifa ran up. She wore a mini skirt, boots, and a brown leather cowboy hat.  
She was slightly out of breath.   
Zack turned away.  
  
"I'll- I'll be alright, dad! I have two men from SOLDIER with me. By the way, I'm Tifa, nice to meet you." Tifa pouted her lips and held out her hand flirtatiously to Sephiroth- who didn't seem to notice.  
"Jesus! Tifa! You're the guide!?" Zack couldn't hold himself in anymore.  
He wanted to ignore her, but he couldn't.  
  
"That's right." She snarled, "I just happen to be the number one guide in this town!" A sarcastic, triumphant red smile peeled onto her face.  
  
"It's dangerous! I can't involve you in something like this!"  
Sephiroth placed a heavy, black, lead hand onto Zack's shoulder. Somehow, he was amused at the situation between Zack and Tifa that he was aware of- and picked up on.  
A weird smile was on his face as he looked down and spoke, "There is no problem if you protect her, now is there. Let's go."  
  
"Uhm... Mr. Sephiroth! Please let me take a picture for a memento! Uh- Tifa- uh- can you ask him for me to-" Awkwardly, the photographer glanced to Tifa as if for reimbursement.  
Sephiroth heard him, and simply walked over to stand beside Tifa and Zack.  
  
The photographer looked pleased as he stood back and got his camera ready. He placed it against his face and yelled,  
"Cheeeese!"  
  
Click.  
  
"Great! Thank you! I'll give you each a copy once I get it developed!"  
  
Cloud and Karl adjusted the heavy packs of supplies that were strapped to their backs. Zack, Tifa, and Sephiroth lead.  
Tifa glanced over her slender shoulder and looked strait at Cloud.  
Cloud swallowed hard. There was no way she could see through his uniform SOLDIER mask and recognize him.  
Zack and Tifa made forced conversation as they walked up the path to Mt. Nibel where the mako reactor was built far up out of ordinary reach.  
The cold air of Mt. Nibel bit their faces and the tips of their fingers.  
The path on the mountain was misty, freezing, rocky, and gray.  
It winded and spun up hill for hours.  
Then, they reached a bridge.  
Tifa ran into the middle of it.  
Sephiroth followed.  
Zack, and Cloud hesitated.  
Karl had a very bad feeling about the whole thing, and nearly didn't cross.  
  
"Come on, Karl. We can't wait for you. Either come or don't. If you don't we are not waiting for you." Sephiroth called from the front of the bridge.  
"Come on, you guys! It gets harder from here! Follow me!" Tifa yelled as she went ahead on the bridge.  
As Karl plucked up his courage, he, Zack, and Cloud began to walk slowly and carefully across the rickety old bridge that had a deep and endless drop bellow it.  
The wind and the mist shook the creaking wood and ropes violently as if toying with their very fear of plunging to a grotesque death.  
  
The rope snapped.  
Sephiroth braced himself.  
Zack, Tifa, Zack, and Karl fell.  
Soon, Sephiroth couldn't hold on any longer, and he too, fell.  
  
Zack, and Tifa fell beside each other.  
Cloud and Sephiroth fell behind a boulder on the path.  
  
Sephiroth got up immediately, unphased by the whole ordeal- as if it didn't matter at all.  
He shook his head; letting pebbles fall from his sleek, silver hair.  
"Everyone seems alright. Can we get back to where we were?" He asked as Tifa and Zack regained themselves.  
"These... uh, caverns are intertwined... just like an ant farm..." She stood, and brushed herself off. For a moment she thought that she twisted her ankle.  
"Oh, and Seph! There seems to be one person missing!" Tifa looked around, and helped Zack to his feet.  
"This may sound cold, but we have no time to search for him. We can't go back now, so we must go on. We'll travel together from here."  
Cloud nodded in agreement as he shuddered.  
He wondered where exactly Karl landed.  
  
From the path that they fell upon, they headed strait up into a cave.  
The cave was cool, but not cold- and the walls were slick and mysteriously green and swirled black.  
The walls looked like polished malachite.  
The air in the cave was thin and pale.  
"What's... this?" Zack asked as they walked in. There was little light in the cave. Zack touched the walls. They were cool and glassy.  
"A-... mysteriously colored cave?" Tifa looked around in awe. It was beautiful, in a strange, misty way.  
"Must be the mako energy. This mountain is abundant in it. That's why the mako reactor was built here." Sephiroth said as he simply walked past the others and out of the cave. Cloud said nothing as he walked by Zack and Tifa.  
  
As they pressed on, they reached a small grove.  
Tree roots gnarled into odd, huge, sculptural shapes. Green mako energy polluted the air making the filtered sunlight aqua green.  
In the center of a ring of twisting, still but writhing tree roots, was a natural fountain. Bubbling and flowing from it was not water, but liquid, green mako.  
Sunlight was falling upon the energy from a hole in the leafy canopy above.  
"Wow. What's this?"   
The party stopped as they reached the mako fountain. Tifa was the first to run up to it.  
"A mako fountain." Sephiroth answered as he walked up close to the bubbling green pool.  
"It's so beautiful. If the mako reactor continues to suck up energy, this fountain will dry up, too!"  
"Materia. When you condense mako energy, Materia is produced. It's very rare to be able to see Materia in its natural state."  
"By the way," Zack interjected. "Why is it that when you use Materia, you can also use magic, too?"  
Sephiroth sighed irritated. "You were in SOLDIER and don't even know THAT? The knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients is held in the Materia. Anyone with this knowledge can freely use the powers of the land and the Planet. That knowledge interacts between ourselves and the Planet calling up the magic, or-so-they-say."  
"Magic... a mysterious power." Zack smiled secretly as he stared at the fountain.  
Sephiroth began to laugh.  
"Did I say something funny?" Zack shot his glance to the laughing general.  
"A man once told me never to use unscientific terms, such as, 'mysterious power,' It shouldn't even be called, 'magic.' I still remember how angry he was." Sephiroth mused as he thought of his childhood lessoned that prepared him for SOLDIER.  
"Who was that?" Zack asked curiously as he itched his ear.  
"Hojo of Shin-Ra Inc. An experienced man assigned to take over the works of a great scientist... He was a walking mass of complexes."  
"I know who Hojo is." Zack hissed. He hated being talked down to.  
  
"A mako fountain... So this is where the knowledge of the Ancients is..." Tifa said quietly. Cloud said nothing, but stared at her.  
  
They soon reached the mako reactor near the summit of Mt. Nibel.  
The building looked unnatural amidst its surroundings.  
It stood out like something ancient and lonely.  
"We finally made it! We sure took the long way, though!" Tifa yelled as she excitedly wiped a sweaty, dirty brow with her arm.  
"Tifa, you wait here." Zack said sternly as she approached the stairway leading in.  
"I'm going inside! I want to see, too!"  
"Only authorized people are aloud in. This place is full of Shin-Ra's industrial secrets." Sephiroth added sternly as he walked up the first of the few steps leading inside. Zack followed him.  
"Take care of the lady." He said to Cloud with a smirk.  
"Oh, man! You better take REAL good care of me, then!" Tifa stomped her foot as Cloud shook his head.  
  
Sephiroth was far ahead of Zack as they walked inside. Sephiroth wanted to strait into the heart of the reactor.  
Zack soon caught up with him. Inside, was a red walled room filled with a dozen pair shaped pods.  
A stairway divided the room.  
The stairway lead up to a sealed door, and above the door read the word in bold letters, "Jenova."  
Sephiroth stood at the top of the stairs with his back to Zack.  
  
"So, this is Jenova, right? The lock won't open?"  
Sephiroth turned around with a gray look to his eyes.  
He walked down the stairs and approached Zack.  
Zack moved aside.  
Sephiroth walked up to one of the first pods, and examined it a moment.  
"This is the reason for the malfunction. This part is broken, Zack, close the valve..."  
Zack nods, looks at Sephiroth oddly, and does what he is told to the pod.  
Sephiroth walks across the room, and looks into a porthole on one of the far end pods.  
"Why did it break?" He said out loud to himself in a thoughtful tone.  
Zack glanced at him again.  
"Hojo, even doing this... you will never be put on the same level as professor Gast."   
Sephiroth turned to Zack.  
"This is a system that condenses and freezes mako energy. That is- when working correctly. Now- what does mako energy become when it is further condensed?"  
Zack paused, and folded his arms.  
"Uhm, oh, yeah, becomes a Materia."  
"Right. Normally. But Hojo put something else in there. Take a look."  
Zack walked up to the pod Sephiroth stood near, and paused.  
He looked to Sephiroth, and then hoisted himself up to look into one of the pods.  
Inside was what looked to be a hideous, once human creature asleep in thick watery fluid.  
Zack tumbled back in shock when he saw the monster.  
"Wh- what IS this!?"  
"Normal members of SOLDIER are humans that have been showered in mako. Your different from the others- but still human. But what are they? They have been exposed to a high degree of mako- far more than you." Sephiroth paused and spoke carefully.  
"Is... this some kind of monster...?" Zack asked as he returned to his feet.  
"Exactly. And it's Hojo of Shin-Ra that produced these monsters. Mutated living organisms produced by mako energy, that's what these monsters really are."  
"Normal members of SOLDIER- you mean your different...? Hey... hey! Seph!"  
  
Sephiroth unsheathed his masamune, and began hitting the pod that stood before him violently. Long scratches scared it's white surface.  
His chest heaved, and his face contorted with choking anger.  
"No... no... Was I... Was I created this way, too? Am I the same as these- MONSTERS?!"  
Sephiroth's shoulder's shook- he felt that he was on the verge of exploding as the thoughts and possibilities of things began to make sense.  
All those years that he spent his childhood in a laboratory- maybe he was a fucking science experiment like the rumors that surrounded life whispered.  
It was Hojo. Hojo created these- things...   
Was he a... "Thing?"  
A monster.  
A fucking monster and not even human.  
  
"Sephiroth!"  
  
Sephiroth spun around. The tip of his lengthy sword neared Zack's face.  
There was a wild, raging fire in his eyes.  
  
"You SAW THEM! All of them were- HUMANS!" Sephiroth screeched. He clutched his face and dropped his sword.  
"Human?... No. No fucking way. No." Zack backed away as Sephiroth flew past him and ran up the stairs toward the Jenova room.  
  
"I've... always felt that since I was small, that I was different from the others-special- in some ways... but not like this... Not like this!"  
  
Sephiroth stood on the tall stairway and caught his breath, trying to calm himself. As he began to slowly regain his state of mind and walk back out of the reactor, one of the pods began to violently rock.  
  
Both Zack and the general stopped and stared.  
The pod jerked back and forth. One of the creatures awoke and tried to break free.  
Steam poured out of the top of the pod.  
The monster screeched, much like the sound of Sephiroth's voice when he screeched.  
  
The creature broke free, and fell to the floor in a tiered, weak, and dying broken heap.  
  
  
  
Zack, Tifa, and Cloud went back to Nibleheim alone. Sephiroth requested to be left alone in the reactor to clean up the beast that broke free.  
Then, he would climb down Mt. Nible alone.   
He reached Nibleheim very late that night.  
He felt tiered, hungry, and very very lonely.  
As he reached town, he didn't feel like returning to the inn- instead he took it upon himself to go into the Shin-Ra mansion- and see for himself the piles of documents that were supposedly locked in the basement that were supposedly related to the Jenova project.  
His mother name was Jenova.  
The creature inside the reactor was also called, "Jenova."  
It couldn't have been a coincidence.  
It couldn't have been a FUCKING COINCIDENCE.  
  
It took him only an hour to search the mansion before he found the secret passageway that lead to the basement laboratory.  
  
He lit a few candles to shed light as he crept down the wooden stairway.  
He was exhausted. But it didn't matter.  
Nothing would matter if he weren't even human.  
His whole life would have been a lie- everything he knew- everything that he was supposed to know- the knowledge that was secure and you take for granted- could be false.  
How would you feel if you began to find evidence- reason- that the very skin you wore wasn't even human...?  
Was he supposed to FEEL human?  
  
He flew down the staircase like a mad raven.  
Down the stairs that wound like a coil, he reached a cavern.  
Past there, he KNEW was the laboratory.  
As he walked down the cold, and purple hued cavern- he suddenly felt a chill as he passed a wooden locked door.  
  
But he pressed on, and reached the lab.  
The laboratory was FILLED with notes, files, and books.  
He did not sleep that night- nor the night after- he ravaged every bit of paper that he could find that had the words, "Hojo, Gast, Jenova, Cetra, Sephiroth, and Ancient" on them.  
  
The following morning, Zack awoke to find that Sephiroth hadn't returned from the reactor. He searched the city for him to no avail. He asked around- someone said that he saw him enter the mansion last night. Cloud offered to help look.  
It took Zack and Cloud nearly two hours to find the secret passage way that lead downstairs.  
Cloud didn't dare go down.  
Zack did.  
  
"An organism that was apparently dead found in a 200 year old geological stratum. Professor Gast named that organism, Jenova. X year, X month, X day, Jenova confirmed to be an Ancient. X year, X month, X day, Jenova project approved for the use of mako reactor. My mother's name is Jenova... Jenova project, is this just a coincidence?"  
  
Zack walked quietly into the ill lit laboratory.  
Sephiroth was muttering to himself, pacing back and forth, writing notes and reading out loud.   
He did not look, or seem well.  
Black bags hung like heavy tar underneath his green eyes.  
His face looked sunken, and his hair was disheveled.  
His skin looked like it was glazed in sweat.  
Sephiroth did not acknowledge Zack's existence.   
He simply continued to walk back and fourth with a book in hand.  
"Uh, Sephiroth?" Zack quietly approached the general, and tapped him on the shoulder. His back was to him.  
Sephiroth's head fell. He did not respond at first.   
Then, he took a deep, raspy, breath and whispered, "Leave me alone."  
Zack turned away. As he reached the door, he glanced over his shoulder to Sephiroth.  
Then, he walked away.  
Zack wandered around the mansion for hours before he found a cold, dusty, and unused bed to sleep upon.  
  
Downstairs, Sephiroth was restless.  
  
"I... I think I see. I think. Yes. I think I understand. I see it all clearly, now." Sephiroth dropped a folder filled with paper.  
His eyes were bloodshot red.   
He released his bladder upon the back wall of the laboratory.  
He smiled to himself.  
"Jenova was an ancient. But not just any ancient-" He spoke out loud to himself as he pissed.  
"She was a goddess. And... she died. For some reason. Mother died." He zipped up his pants, and choked on a broken laugh.  
"And she was buried and forgotten over the centuries, until....." He then strode over to the desk in the lab, and knocked all the papers, books, and files that sat there onto the floor. Then, he pulled himself onto the desk and sat there- then continued on talking out loud to himself.  
"Until BRILLIANT professor Gast came around and found her. He thought that by extracting her cells that he could bring a part of her back to life. Of course, that would mean creating a whole new being/organism, I.E.- me. How- fascinating, Gast. Creating a being that is HALF GOD. In fact, I AM a god. I am Jenova's son. Jenova, a goddess, the Planet is rightfully hers, no, ours, isn't it? Isn't it, mom?" Sephiroth could not stop smiling.  
He finally knew the truth. No, he wasn't human. He was something more.  
Something bigger. So much more important.  
It was all in the files, the forgotten papers.  
He was a god, an heir to the Planet. A Cetra.  
He leaned over off the desk, and picked up a file.  
He leaned back, and wickedly guffawed.  
He couldn't stop laughing; his eyes began to tear up.  
He hadn't eaten or slept in days.  
"Then, Gast died, unexpectedly. Hojo resumed the 'project,' I.E, raising me. They did it- created me, because they thought that I would somehow inherit the memories of Jenova from her cells, and lead them to the Promised Land. A place FILLED with mako energy. ... They made me so they could make money. That was the whole point- the whole goal of the project. Mako equals money..." He chuckled into his hand.  
"Isn't that FUNNY...? The whole meaning and purpose of my LIFE- was to act as a pig sniffing out truffles?! To find them mako, eh? WELL..."  
He fell back and laughed.  
It was... ironic.  
"What's this?" Sephiroth looked to his side, and found another book.  
It was the 'history,' of the Cetra. A file report.  
He leaned back, and read- underneath the flicking yellow light of a dying candle.  
  
  
Zack woke. He was freezing. The room in the abandoned Shin-Ra mansion was like ice. He woke with nightmares still fresh, and slowly fading.  
He heard noises all night long. Sleep hadn't come easy.  
He swore the mansion was haunted.  
Immediately, he rose and headed toward the basement. Near the secret passage to the basement, Cloud stood, and he was pacing and nervous.  
"What's wrong?" Zack asked. He noticed the secret passage door was wide open.  
"Sephiroth... He seems different..." Cloud muttered. His blue eyes were very pale.  
Zack nodded, and ran down the wooden spiraling steps.  
He dashed through the laboratory.  
It had a foul odor to it.  
  
There, behind a stack of strewn, torn, some burned, books and papers, Sephiroth sat at a desk.  
He was reading some papers with a fat smile to his thin face.  
He was laughing consistently, and quietly to himself.  
  
His face rose.   
He squinted in the dim light to see Zack standing at the door.  
"Heh heh heh... hm? Who- who is it... hmph. Oh. Traitor." Sephiroth rose from the desk. He clasped his fingers behind his back.  
"Traitor?" The word tasted like acid on his tongue.  
  
"You... IGNORENT traitor. I'll tell you." Sephiroth began to pace two and fro as he spoke. "The planet originally belonged to the Cetra. Cetra was a itinerant race. They would migrate in, settle the planet, then move on. At the end of their harsh, hard journey, they would find the Promised Land and supreme happiness. But those that disliked the journey disappeared, and those who stopped their migrations built shelters and elected to lead an easier life. They took that which the Cetra and the Planet had made without giving back one whit in return." He stopped, turned, and raised a thin, pale finger- and pointed to Zack. His arm casted a heavy shadow against his indented cheeks and uncolored features.  
"Those...are your ancestors."  
  
"Sephiroth..." Zack pleaded.  
  
"Long ago, disaster struck this planet. Your ancestors escaped. They survived because they hid. The Planet was saved by sacrificing the Cetra. After that, your ancestors continued to increase." He stopped, lowered his hand, and gestured to the books scattered, broken, and thrown around the floor like trash.  
"All that's left of the Cetra is in these reports."  
  
"What does that have to do with you?" Zack walked deeper into Sephiroth's den.  
  
Sephiroth's face furrowed and scowled.   
He paused, and rested his forehead on his hand in thought.  
Then, he exploded.  
"DON'T YOU GET IT!?... An Ancient named Jenova was found in the geological stratum 2000 years ago, the Jenova project. The Jenova project wanted to produce people with the powers of the Ancients- no the Cetra. I am the one that was produced."  
  
Zack took a step back. He couldn't believe this. Impossible. No one would... Sephiroth was his friend, his war buddy; they used to get drunk together.  
He was scaring him.  
"P-produced?"  
  
"Yes. Professor Gast, leader of the Jenova project and genius scientist produced me."  
  
"I don't... How did he? Sephiroth!?" Zack didn't understand. He didn't believe.  
As Zack approached him Sephiroth pushed him aside and headed for the door.  
  
"Out of my way! I am going to see my mother!"  
  
Sephiroth stormed out of the mansion.   
As he ran through the mansion, he passed Cloud.  
Cloud ran after him.  
His masamune, his friend that he created- much in the same way he was created, hung at his side.  
It- his friend- was crying for blood- blood of the race that took his mother and made her into an experiment.  
It cried for the blood of the people that took his planet, his Earth, his Promised Land- away from his people and his mother.  
  
He would bring them back; he would be their Savior. He, and the Cetra, was the rightful heirs of the planet.  
He wanted revenge for everything they had done.  
He would start with the Shin-Ra- the company that produced mako energy, which produced the Jenova project, which killed Katrina- that created his life and took it away.  
He would kill them all.  
Everyone.   
  
Just kill everyone.  
  
They deserved it.  
  
It was for revenge.  
  
As he existed the mansion, he pulled a bright green piece of materia from his pocket.  
And then a blue one.  
He loaded them onto his blade.  
Materia- condensed mako energy.  
  
He took one glance around the small town of Nibleheim.  
So quiet, so peaceful, so normal.  
He wanted to shake them. Make them feel what he felt.  
...  
  
  
Should...  
  
  
  
  
Should...  
  
  
He...  
  
  
Really...  
  
  
Do...  
  
  
It?  
  
  
...They are innocent, and have nothing to do with... anything, really.  
Look at them.  
Look at them run.  
You can make them run.  
Make them feel the pain, the chaos, the feelings that you feel.  
But you really don't feel anything.  
Numb.  
Your special.  
Your chosen.  
You know you are.  
Burn them.  
Do it.  
They deserve it.  
  
Yes.  
  
Raise the blade.  
  
Raise it high.  
  
Then, cast, 'Fire 3-' with your 'All.' Do it.  
  
I know you can.  
Yes.  
Look at them.  
Look at them RUN.  
Hear them scream.  
It made you feel good, and satisfied...the beginning of your revenge.  
Feel happy.  
Feel happy that you finally know who your mother is,  
And your destiny is much larger, much more important than you ever have anticipated.  
Yes.  
  
"Sephiroth!"   
He heard his name, and he turned around.  
Cloud stood there, un his Shin-Ra uniform.  
"Stop! What are you doing!?"  
Sephiroth...  
  
Smiled.  
  
  
He casted, 'Fire 3,' again. Then, physically shoved Cloud to the ground.  
He thought it was funny.  
  
The town was in flames.  
Cloud began to choke on the smoke; he couldn't get back up.  
  
Zangan, The martial art's master, leapt out of the inn once the flames reached the downstairs level.   
He challenged Sephiroth.  
  
Sephiroth thought it was a joke. He knew he was the greatest swords man that ever lived- people came long and far just to have his autograph.  
He laughed in Zangan's face, then, in one swift move of his blade, stabbed him in the shoulder.  
Zangan's body was stuck at the hilt of the sword.  
Sephiroth braced his foot onto his stomach, and kicked him off his bloody- wet sword.  
Zangan fell to the ground, held his wound. He didn't care about himself, and he realized that it would be impossible to beat Sephiroth.  
He staggered around, and tried to help someone.  
  
Nibleheim was burning... burning... burning.  
  
Zack soon appeared from out of the mansion.  
  
As Zack approached, Sephiroth... turned, and saw three fleeing people.  
They didn't have a chance against the masamune.  
  
He cut one woman in half, long pink organs spilling out with huge amounts of thick dark blood.  
The sound of the steel blade slicing against her bony spine nearly made Zack fall back and vomit.  
  
He felt nauseated as Sephiroth simply, brutally, hacked and slashed the two other town's people to bits.  
Blood splattered all over his face, and dripped down his blade, and caked his hands red.  
  
He then turned, and looked at Zack with a thin... long stare...  
He turned, and walked slowly into the flames.  
They engulfed him, and held him in their serpent, flaming arms.  
Like a lost angel returning to hell.  
His footsteps echoed.  
He left a trail of blood behind him.  
  
  
"Hey, hey! You! You are still sane, right!? Then come over here and help me!  
I'll check in this house, you check the one over there!" Zangan called to Zack. Zack shook his head, and nodded to the red caped, martial arts man.  
  
"Terrible. Sephiroth. This is too terrible."  
  
  
It took no time at all for Sephiroth to climb Mt. Nible. He had a new resolve, a new purpose in life.  
It wasn't SOLDIER.  
It wasn't finding mako for the Shin-Ra Company to make money off of.  
He knew his family now, and where he came from.  
Revenge.  
Revenge for his people's genocide.  
  
Outside the factory, Tifa stood at the steps.  
Sephiroth didn't even notice her.  
She called to him.  
He paid no mind.  
Blood followed him in.  
As he entered the factory, an older man with dark brown eyes and dark brown hair stood near the door to the red room with the pods.  
He seemed to be locking the door.  
  
"OUT of my way!"  
"Hm? Seph... Sephiroth, wasn't it?"  
Sephiroth raised his blade, and slashed his stomach.  
Guts, intestines, and blood fell out.   
He staggered. Once he saw his own guts fall, he screamed, then fell into a puddle on the ground.  
  
"Mother!" Sephiroth yelled. He dropped his blade beside Tifa's father, and forced the door open. He ran inside.  
  
Not but a moment later as Sephiroth reached the top of the stairs that lead to the Jenova room, Tifa appeared.  
  
He paid her no mind; he was smiling.  
  
"Mother! I am here to see you! Please, open this door!"  
  
"How... how could you do that to papa, and all the townspeople!?" She hesitantly approached him with the masamune in hand.  
Sephiroth turned around.  
There was a mad look in his eye- amused, and crazed.   
Tifa paused, and raised the blade to strike him down.  
Sephiroth grabbed the blade from her.  
He out powered her, and she let go.  
He struck her in a clean slice.  
  
Her limp body stumbled to the floor.  
  
Sephiroth turned, and went inside the Jenova room.  
  
Zack finally caught up to him.  
He was out of breath, and exhausted.   
Tifa lay upon the floor.  
He looked at her- but there was no time...  
He picked up her bloody body, and put her aside.  
  
Then, he went in.  
  
"Sephiroth! Stop!"  
Sephiroth turned. He knew who it was.  
Sephiroth charged at him, and kicked his body out of the Jenova room.  
He sliced him.  
He nearly fell in two.  
He tossed Zack's carcass out.  
Zack fell onto a pod.  
Blood was staining the floor.  
  
Cloud then appeared.  
He saw Tifa on the floor, and Zack strewn out ontop of a pod.  
  
He approached Tifa.  
She gasped; she was still alive. "You... promised. You promised that you would come when I was in trouble."  
Cloud stood, and ran to Zack.  
Zack gasped, "Cloud, kill Sephiroth..." Cloud took Zack's giant sword that was strapped to his back, and ran inside.  
  
Inside, the Jenova creature was strapped to a wall. She looked like an angel, with tubes and wiring and a metal mask across her face. Sephiroth stood in front of her, with his arms outstretched.  
He felt wonderful.  
  
"Mother! Let's take this planet back together! ... I thought of a great idea! Let's go to the Promised Land!"  
  
Cloud was shaking violently. "Sephiroth! My family! My hometown! How could you do this to them!?"  
  
"They have come again, mother! With her superior power, knowledge, and magic, mother was destined to ruler of the Planet."   
Sephiroth then reached up to the metal mask that hid the face of the dead goddess. He wanted... for just a moment... to touch his mother. His great mother.  
"But... they, those worthless creatures... are stealing the planet from mother..." His face reflected off the shiny metal that hid her face. He unlatched her body from the wall that held her.  
"But I'm here now, so don't worry..."  
Cloud heard the sadness in Sephiroth's voice.  
He seemed so distant.  
There must be some sanity there.  
  
Cloud blurted out. He couldn't just watch.  
"WHAT about MY sadness! My family, friends, the sadness of having my hometown taken away from me? It's the same as your sadness!"  
  
Sephiroth placed the front have of Jenova down on the floor carefully, and turned to Cloud.  
Sephiroth acknowledged him.  
"Heh heh heh... my sadness?! What have I to be sad about!? I am the chosen one. I have been chosen to become leader of this planet. I have orders to take this planet back from you stupid people for the Cetra. What have I to be sad about?"  
  
Cloud shook his head as Sephiroth's green, penetrating stare bore down on him from above.  
"Sephiroth, I trusted you. Your not the Sephiroth that I used to know!"  
  
Sephiroth laughed loudly. He turned, and ripped the head off of Jenova.  
Then, as Cloud raised his sword, he simply walked down and passed him.  
Cloud gripped his sweaty sword hard; he wanted to strike as Sephiroth passed him by.  
But he couldn't.  
  
Sephiroth simply walked by the pod room, and headed out of the mako factory with Jenova's head and his sword in hand.  
He reached the room that was nothing more than a long hallway/bridge.  
On either side of the bridge were endless pits that lead to the basement- miles bellow.  
  
Then, Cloud caught up with him as he nearly walked out.  
"Stop!" Cloud quivered from behind.  
  
Sephiroth stopped. Without even turning around, he slammed the masamune into Cloud's stomach.  
"Don't... push... your... luck." Sephiroth whispered.  
  
Cloud's eyes dilated.  
His mouth was dry.  
He felt the hot wetness on his hands as he touched the blade that jetted out from the front of his body.  
He felt something surge though his mussels. He knew that this wasn't even remotely the end.  
  
He wasn't thinking.  
He grabbed the blade, letting the sides of it cut into his hands.  
With all the strength that he had, and all the strength that he didn't have, he lifted the sword.  
Sephiroth, not knowing what was happening, held on, and tried to out  
power Cloud.  
Cloud, with the sword sticking out, threw Sephiroth.  
The masamune slid out from his body, as Sephiroth held the hilt.  
  
And Sephiroth, his sword, and Jenova's head fell- thrown like a rag doll into the pit- into the basement- under the reactor's bridge.  
  
Cloud staggered, and vomited some blood, and fell to the ground.  
  
Sephiroth fell into the pits and the basement of the reactor.  
His body was crushed.  
Everything was black.  
And silent.  
  
Before him stretched a long, black hallway.  
No, it was a tunnel.  
There was no light at the end of the tunnel.  
But something, someone, was coming.  
Sephiroth knew that he was dying.  
  
The creature at the end of the dark hallway...  
Looked like an angel.  
It looked like mother.  
"Sephiroth," cried the blurry angel.  
It must have been an angel.  
It had two wings.  
"Mother..." Sephiroth called out. He reached out into the blackness of the hallway.  
"Sephiroth..." She said sadly, airily.  
There was something in Sephiroth's hand, still.  
It was masamune- his friend.  
"Se-"  
He didn't know why.  
But he took masamune,  
And as the angel approached,  
He sliced her wing off.  
She was the one winged angel.  
In that dark, dark hallway,  
As he died.  
  
  
The angel winced in pain.  
He couldn't see her, not really.  
She still was blurry...  
Her wing fell,  
Into the blackness.  
She lifted him, and flew...  
With just one wing...  
And took him to the Promised Land...  
To let his body rest under the ice...  
Then, she kissed him...  
And let him become the one winged angel...  
  
Sephiroth. 


	25. Epilogue

From the author of   
"An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine"  
Phoenix Down.  
  
Phantom Wall Devils: A tale of Sephiroth  
Part: Epilogue   
Nun  
  
  
"THIS is the end of him, here he lies:  
The dust in his throat, the worm in his eyes,  
The mould in his mouth, the turf on his breast;  
This is the end of him, this is best."  
(Amy Levy, 'Epitaph' British poet [1861-1899])  
  
"Sors immanis et inanis rota tu volubilis satus malus vana salus semper dissolubilis obumbrata et velata michi quoque niteris;"   
  
(Fate: monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent, well-being is in vain and always fades into nothing, shadowed and veiled you plague me too; [Carmina Burana: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi 25. "O Fortuna" (O Fortune)] Translation by Phoenix Down)  
  
  
  
  
So. That's it. I bet you want to know what happened, then, right? Yeah. Well. I'll tell you what happened.  
Nothing.  
Abso-fucking-lutely, nothing.  
  
Sephiroth finished his story, stood, and walked into the hallway.  
He stopped, smiled, and then asked.  
"So, do you want to follow me down this hallway, down this long dark tunnel into the unknown- to the land of the dead?"  
  
I paused and stared at him.  
For a moment, just a moment- he didn't look like an angel to me.  
He just looked, you know, human.  
  
Then, I told him what I always told him when he asked me.  
  
He turned, and smiled, and walked away.  
Then, he was gone.  
  
It took me a while to compile all of the tapes I've thus far collected in the interview. There were twenty-four of them all together, both sides filled.  
I listened to them again, and typed out everything, and added my comments- like I told you, what your reading here.  
  
When I was finished, I went and took a walk back to my apartment complex.  
Like I had suspected, I was evicted.  
I talked to my landlord, and begged for him to give me my place back- but he said there were people already committed to moving in.  
I told him to fuck himself- you bald- fat fucker.  
  
I went and took a walk, then.  
  
There was nothing better to do; I had no job, no home, and no money.  
But I figured that I'd walk into the newspaper office, and show them my tapes and transcripts- I'd have my job back then for sure.  
  
You won't believe whom I ran into then, as I was walking.  
Misty, my cousin.  
She asked me where the fuck I'd been, and how I looked skinny, and like shit- why haven't she seen me- blah blah blah.  
I told her nowhere, just, you know, around.  
Then, she asked me about the hallway- she asked me what kind of weird drugs I had been doing.  
She remembered when she said that I showed her the basement- and she said that I thought I had been seeing weird shit.  
I told her- no, I've been fine. That was it.  
Then, she dropped it.  
  
We walked for a little bit- then she went home.  
  
I continued wandering until I got to a dirt road. There was thick, black forest on either side of me.  
The place seemed familiar.  
And as I kept walking, I thought of the fire that my sister was burned in.  
You know- as crazy as it sounds- I don't think that it was my fault anymore.  
My friends started the fire; sure- I could have done more about it- but- that's not what happened.   
I can't continue living like a dead man.  
  
Maybe, that's why I didn't go down that hallway.  
Then, as I walked, a pair of red eyes blinked at me in the forest.  
  
"He's gone... isn't he? You... didn't go down that hallway, if you had- he would have returned... I saw it all in my nightmares- what would have happened if he returned to the living..."  
I told Vincent Valentine that everything was ok, and the tunnel was gone.  
"Good." His sad eyes seemed to flash a smile.  
I asked Valentine where he was going now.  
"Nowhere... perhaps back to my nightmares, back to my dreams..."  
Sweet dreams.  
I told him.  
  
As I continued walking down that dirt road, I saw a dog.  
He was a small dog, not much older than a puppy.  
He whimpered, and began to follow me, sniffing my heels.  
I bent down, and rubbed his sandy fur.  
He wagged his tale.  
  
Together, like friends, we walked home.  
  
  
  
  
~The End. Phoenix Down. 


End file.
